


Crossing Paths

by kracken



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Brutality, Conspiracy, Dark, Drug Addiction, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Eventual Happy Ending, Flashbacks, Heavy Angst, Language, Lemon, M/M, Manipulation, Physical Abuse, Post EW, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rehabilitation, Violence, Yaoi, but he's still the Perfect Soldier, but it's non-con drug addiction, but this ain't a happy fic, esp. on Duo's part, eventual romantic Heero, politicians are evil, there are some light spots in the dark, unprofessional professionals, very maladjusted Gundam boys trying to fit into society, why is that not a tag?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-02
Updated: 2013-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-26 03:03:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 29
Words: 120,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13848717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kracken/pseuds/kracken
Summary: Heero finds Duo after the war, but all is not well with the former Deathscythe pilot. Heero quickly finds himself embroiled in government intrigue and a life or death struggle to save the self proclaimed 'Shinigami'.





	1. Not Like You

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Dacia, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [A Little Piece of Gundam Wing](https://fanlore.org/wiki/A_Little_Piece_Of_Gundam_Wing), which closed in 2017. With Kracken's permission, I began manually importing her works to the AO3 as part of an Open Doors-approved project after July 2017.

"Captain Maxwell..." The doctor took off his glasses as he closed the journal book in his lap, placing it neatly on top of an overlarge file folder already there. "The goal of writing a journal is to make LEGIBLE entries that I can evaluate periodically. A simple, computerized notebook would suffice. You can pick one up for very little money. Insisting on writing with a pencil, in an unintelligible scrawl, edited severely with scratch marks, and covered in... coffee?... will not be helpful when I make my report to the medical board." He tapped the journal with a firm finger, "It is also not a place for poetry and song lyrics, Captain Maxwell, nor your grocery or motorcycle part list."  
  
"If you would just sign off and let me get back into space," Duo Maxwell snapped back, "I wouldn't be sitting in this chair bothering you!"  
  
"You know I can't do that!" The doctor snapped back and then took a deep breath, let it out, and said more calmly, "Captain Maxwell, I take my profession very seriously. You were deemed unstable and a danger. I will not sign off on your file until you prove to me that therapy has corrected that diagnosis. If you would just cooperate-"  
  
Duo sat forward in his chair towards the doctor, impish face marred by a hard edge around a generous mouth, a mouth that seemed more used to smiling. His amethyst eyes were serious, but dejected as well, hope having been lost long ago of his ever being allowed to return to space. Dressed all in black, like a military commando, and in an over large trench coat, he still appeared to be the too young Gundam pilot that had saved the colonies and Earth four years ago. Dark Shinigami. That's who the doctor and the other bureaucrats feared. That's who they wanted tied to Earth, within reach of their fighting forces; denied any weapon that could do damage.  
  
"This is just a dance," Duo said softly and stood up, black coat swirling around him and eyes going intense with sadness. "A dance we have together twice a month. A dance I'm going to be forced to continue until... what? Until they get the guts to put a war hero in an insane asylum? Until they can make me 'go away' without anyone noticing?"  
  
"Paranoia again?" the Doctor sighed and made a note on his clipboard. "If you refuse to take your medication, Captain Maxwell, you will be committed. We won't have any choice."  
  
"Six pills, twice a day," Duo said bitterly and pulled the pill case out of one pocket. "Twelve pills. Six are missing. I took them. I have to. They make me get a medical exam twice a month too, to make sure they're in my system and at the proper levels. Didn't you know that? I CAN'T cheat, doctor."  
  
"I'm sorry that this is necessary," the doctor replied and did seem genuinely sympathetic.   
  
"I'm sorry that this is all bogus!" Duo retorted. "I'm sorry that the government thinks they have to control me by drugging me up and sticking tags on me!" He lifted up one booted foot, even though the black boot and an inch of skin hid the locator device in bedded in his ankle. He lowered the foot with a loud noise on the floor, and glared as he continued, "I think they're the ones who need the psych exam if they're that afraid of a skinny, nineteen year old, orphan-"  
  
"-Trained Gundam pilot," the doctor broke in pointedly, "who knows more about death, destruction, and ways of causing it than some of our best soldiers. Captain Maxwell, if you think you're being unfairly detained and medicated, there are channels you can appeal to. Might I point out though, that they will see the glaring flaw in your complaint as well as I do. You are the only Gundam pilot to be detained. All of the others were mainstreamed into society directly after cessation of hostilities in the war and the uprising afterwards. If the government is afraid of, and plotting against ex Gundam pilots, then how can you explain their selectiveness?"  
  
Duo felt his face burn, but he replied flippantly, "Maybe I'm the most skilled?"  
  
The doctor sighed and scribbled more notes. "There is a medical condition for having an over inflated sense of self as well, Captain Maxwell."  
  
"I wish you wouldn't call me that!" Duo hissed, crossing his arms tightly over his chest defensively. "It's just honorary. They gave it to all the pilots just so the government could have a nice photo op. They wanted to fool everyone into thinking that they were forgiving and forgetting about everything we'd blown up during our short careers as terrorists. In reality, I know they would rather have had us standing in front of an execution detail."  
  
The doctor raised an eyebrow. "The government has been very generous, Mr. Maxwell. They have been paying all of your treatment bills, you've been given a pension and a monthly living expense check, and they allow you to travel anywhere you wish on Earth."  
  
"Gilded cages," Duo grumbled fretfully and then, strongly, "Times up, doc. Just do like you always do and mark the crazy box so I can go."  
  
The doctor stood up in exasperation and handed Duo back his worn journal. "There is a penalty for not trying, Mr. Maxwell."  
  
"Threats?" Duo bristled, purple eyes glittering angrily.  
  
The doctor made yet another mark on his chart "It was a friendly reminder that your release is contingent on your cooperation. I'm sorry that you thought it was a threat."  
  
Duo's face twisted bitterly. He turned and fumbled for the doorknob. "Thanks a lot, Doc, like it mattered anyway. We both know what this is all about. You know damn well it doesn't matter what you put down."  
  
The Doctor was serious and his words followed Duo past the receptionist and into the hallway. "I don't know anything, Captain Maxwell. I'm just trying to help you."  
  
Duo was more than glad to leave the medical building and step out onto the busy city streets again, even though he didn't find peace of mind there either. A dark figure, inside and out, moving through a landscape of color, Duo was aware of looks, of people changing course to avoid him, and some few, actually recognizing him and going pale. Gundam pilot. Terrorist. Shinigami. Dealer of death. His braid marked him and his unusual eyes.  
  
Sometimes, Duo wished that he had grown tall and had sprouted a beard, like Trowa, become muscular and rugged, like Quatre, put on glasses, a casual coat, and shaved his head bald like Wu Fei, or, well, he hadn't seen Heero, but wishing that he had shown the same sense and made himself disappear, was an envy Duo carried as well.  
  
It was just another cosmic joke that Duo Maxwell stayed the same, body refusing to grow, beard refusing to show itself, and hair untouchable and forever a marker of who he was. He couldn't escape the public eye, couldn't escape the constant news stories about his mental illness and his rumored bizarre lifestyle; doctored photos showing him in the strangest settings and doing things he had never imagined. He dressed outrageously to mock them, finding some perverse pleasure in looking the part of the bogeyman they had made him out to be, yet kept himself secluded, coming out mostly at night when faces blurred and everyone was dazzled by the city lights, including the reporters.  
  
Duo slapped on dark sunglasses as the sun began to hurt his eyes and his steps dragged as he walked in a gravity he was still unable to deal with. The colonies had artificial light and the gravity wasn't as strong as the pull of a planet. Raised on L2 colony, Duo suffered on Earth. It made the decision by the government, to deny him space travel, not only unjust, but cruel as well.  
  
It was time to get back to the anonymity and safety of his apartment, Duo thought. He could hide from the light there and walk on cushioned floors that gave his aching, gravity stressed, joints respite. It was lonely. It was a prison. It was a haven. A haven where Duo escaped the scrutiny of people who hated him, shunned him, worshiped him, and believed every story told about him. In his apartment, he was in control and safe from the whims of certain people who's motives he knew all to well. Those people patted themselves on the back for having caged a 'dangerous' Gundam pilot, congratulated themselves on a revenge well executed, and felt satisfaction that they had brought a war hero's reputation down to the level of street trash, their envy and their own lack of self worth too great too allow excellence and self sacrifice in anyone.  
  
"Hey! Aren't you that Duo Maxwell?!"  
  
It wasn't the first exclamation like that. It rippled like a breeze on a lake from Duo's center, traveling swiftly, making the placid lives of the people around him shiver with excitement.  
  
"Stinking nut case! Shouldn't be allowed to walk around!"  
  
"I heard he does it with corpses. Calls himself the God of Death or some such crap!"  
  
"Nuts!"  
  
"Dangerous!"  
  
"His landlady said..."  
  
"I read..."  
  
"I heard..."  
  
"Saw a photo of..."  
  
Duo cringed inwardly, though he continued to smile a false smile, keeping his expression of slightly bored, good natured, young man firmly in place. He wasn't sure why it was important for him to appear disarming, non threatening, even amused by his own notoriety. Maybe, he thought, he didn't want to show anyone how much it hurt or how vulnerable he really felt. He hadn't lived so long, coming out of the sink of L2 and surviving a bloody war and an even bloodier uprising, by showing potential enemies his weaknesses.  
  
Duo's apartment was on a main thoroughfare. It was noisy, the lights were always bright, and something was happening there day and night. That's the way he liked things, continuous pandemonium to keep himself distracted from his problems, both inflicted and self inflicted. It was also secure. Guards were at the main entrance, doors were pass key and thumb print protected, and a set of locks on his own door were good enough to foil even the computer hacker genius and sneak thief he had used to be on L2. So, it was a surprise, when he entered his secure apartment, to find Heero Yuy seated comfortably in a black, leather chair and reading a novel on a flat palm screen.  
  
Duo froze, a hand slipping reflexively into a pocket and not finding the weapon he had carried there most of his life. They wouldn't allow him to have one now, not even a knife, and they diligently scanned him for such weapons where ever he went. Defenseless and hating it, Duo stared at his ex Gundam comrade and waited.  
  
Heero continued to read. That gave Duo a chance to think and to study him. Heero had grown both taller and more muscular. He looked out of place in Duo's comfortable apartment. Duo preferred black leather furniture, had a warm, red carpet, several technical pictures of Gundams on the wall, his peace medals hanging from a coat rack, and cushions strewn about the floor where he liked to relax either by his video game console or by his large television screen. Clothes and half empty containers of drink or food were scattered here and there, testament to a casual bachelor lifestyle. It looked normal and broken in.  
  
Heero Yuy, seated at the center of the living room, looked anything, but normal. Instead, he looked like a panther ready to strike, a volcano ready to erupt, a detonator waiting for the touch that would make it explode. Dressed in a black turtleneck, dark pants, and steel toed boots, Heero's hair was a dark, chocolate, uncombed, mess on his head and his eyes were intense, cobalt- blue windows to a mind that was constantly working, constantly analyzing, constantly planning. They weren't warm, those eyes, and they were reading the text on the palm screen as if it were a mission.  
  
"Beer?" Duo said, trying to break Heero's control of the situation. Heero was definitely in control. There was the bulge of a gun along his side and the loose sleeves of his turtleneck were hiding other weapons, Duo was sure.  
  
Heero turned off his book and looked up. His eyes appraised Duo, studying him minutely. "No," he replied at last.  
  
"K," Duo said and then moved into the apartment, closing the door behind him. "Guess I should have a guard dog. I thought this building was secure."  
  
"The building isn't secure," Heero replied, "and your guard dog would now be dead."  
  
Duo frowned. He tossed his journal onto the couch. As it bounced, he walked into the kitchen, opened his refrigerator, and took out a beer. He leaned against a kitchen counter, popped the top, and began drinking very slowly, eyes on nothing. If Heero had been there to hurt or kill him, he would have done it already, Duo thought, not indulged in replying to his target's chit chat.  
  
"You shouldn't drink alcohol with medication," Heero said from the living room.  
  
Duo felt his face go hot. Heero knew. Duo took out his last six pills and swallowed each one between sips of beer, doing exactly what he usually did when confronted by someone trying to control him; he rebelled. Sourly, he finished the beer, crunched the can, and then threw it at a waste bin. It missed and clattered on the floor. Duo left it and walked back into the living room.  
  
Heero was flipping through his journal, his rapid reading skills having taken him halfway through it all ready. Duo strode to him, yanked it out of his hands, and asked viciously, "I've had enough of your fucking mind games, Yuy! Tell me why you broke into my apartment, what the Hell you want, and then get the Hell out! I thought I made it clear to Quatre that I never wanted to see any of you again."  
  
Heero's expression went stern at Duo's distortion of facts. "Your exact words to Quatre Winner were, 'Not seeing any of you is one of the conditions for my release, so leave me alone, Quatre. I'm getting back into space any way I can.'  
  
"Did he tell you that or did you put a tap on his communication?" Duo demanded.  
  
"Both," Heero replied without evasion. He looked Duo up and down again, as if noting differences, however slight, and adding them to some mental file titled, Duo Maxwell.  
  
Duo balled a fist, anger rising up and nearly overwhelming him. "Tell me why you are here!" he insisted, measuring out each word.  
  
Heero came to the point then, his mental notes complete and some inner decision reached. "I'm here to gain your release."  
  
Duo felt a chill. He rubbed at his arms as if he could actually feel one, though it was the inner chill of mental turmoil. He hated to hope, but Heero didn't really play head games. He simply didn't observe the niceties and pleasantries of civilization. Conversation was for a purpose. Visits to ex Gundam pilots was for a purpose too.  
  
"I was given the assignment to watch you, live with you, assess your competence in many areas, and to report back to my superiors," Heero explained.  
  
"Who are your superiors and why are they taking an interest in my case?" Duo wondered. He was a child of the streets. He knew gifts weren't handed out for free. There was always a catch, whether emotionally, physically, or monetarily. Sooner or later, the giver wanted some payback. Duo knew the game. He also thought he knew how much he was willing to pay.  
  
"Classified," Heero replied.  
  
"Then fuck off," Duo said simply and turned away. He plopped down on the couch and picked up the remote. Turning on the television, he pretended to watch whatever drivel was on, while he watched Heero's reaction out of the corner of his eye.  
  
Heero turned for the front door. Duo imagined him going back to his superiors and repeating his 'fuck off' to them exactly with a dead pan face. Duo said, wanting him to stop, not really wanting him to leave, "So, where have you been all of this time?"  
  
"Special ops," Heero replied without slowing. His hand went to the door locks.  
  
"Space?" Duo wondered hopefully, listening to Heero key the codes expertly, the codes only Duo should have known.  
  
"Yes," Heero replied and opened the door, looking out cautiously, one hand on his hidden gun.  
  
Duo bit his lip. He chewed viciously and then asked, "These superiors of yours, the guys who want to help me.... if they're colonial government... if you can get me back into space, I might..." Duo looked towards the door. Heero was gone.  
  
Duo scrambled up from the couch, fell, regained his feet with a curse at the heavy gravity of Earth, and ran as best he could for the front door. He looked frantically both ways down the hallway. It was empty. Picking the end of the hallway that led to a roof access, knowing that Heero hadn't taken the front door of the lobby, Duo hurried to catch up.  
  
An iron hand clamped over Duo's arm as he began to turn a corner. Heero was standing there, intense eyes lively with some emotion and a smirk of satisfaction on his lips. It was his hand that held Duo still as Duo panted and glared at him.  
  
"Will you cooperate?" Heero wondered.  
  
Duo wiped the sweat from his brow, trembling. He was a whore, he realized, all pride and posturing aside. The doctor had crushed his hope again of being released through normal channels. Heero was offering an alternative, secretive and shadowy on the details, but hope of freedom nonetheless. Duo was suddenly discovering that he was willing to do almost anything now to gain his freedom, hating himself, hating his weakness, as he said, "Okay, come on. Let's... Let's talk."  
  
Heero nodded with a self satisfied air and followed.


	2. Undertow

"Your eyes are dilated from drugs and alcohol," Heero said, "Speaking to you further, in this state, would be non productive. All that I require from you now is your permission allowing me several days to observe you. Once I have submitted my findings to my superiors, and they deem you able to operate within our project parameters, then more will be revealed to you."  
  
Duo made a face, but then he rubbed at his eyes and knew that Heero was right. His mind was cloudy, the drugs and alcohol a potent mix. He sat on the couch, hands hanging between his knees and head bowed so that his chestnut bangs hid his expression. He wanted to ask so many questions, but all of them had to do with why Heero and his superiors had chosen to include him in their plans. He couldn't ask those questions without denigrating himself. If Heero was offering a way off planet, then highlighting his short comings was a definite bad move. Still, Heero had known about the drugs. What else did Heero know? How many faults was Heero already aware of? How many faults did Duo have the option of hiding? He wondered.  
  
"I haven't had company in years," Duo replied, "and I never really learned to keep house or be a host. I have a maid come in every other day to clean up my messes. So, if you can look after yourself... sure, why not? Stay and join all the rest of the people who have made it their life watching me in my fish bowl."  
  
Heero nodded as if rejecting most of Duo's conversation, replying only to the permission he had been given, "You will tell everyone that I am your body guard."  
  
Duo grimaced. "You're a fucking war hero, Heero!" he exclaimed despondently. "All of those people down stairs will take one look at you and make up a thousand different stories about why you're suddenly with me, most of them sexual and kinky. Hope you don't mind having your name smeared into the dirt?"  
  
"They won't know me," Heero assured him. "They will think that I am your bodyguard. I have credentials posted in the government computer database already, a false name, and a false history."  
  
"I didn't figure you for delusional, but okay, play it that way, Heero," Duo sighed. He stood and began walking towards the bedroom. "I need some alone time. I had a long, bad day. Eat what you want. Watch what you want."  
  
"No," Heero replied.  
  
Duo turned at his bedroom door, puzzled and irritated, only sleep on his mind. "Huh?"  
  
Heero was standing stiffly at the center of the room, his blue eyes level on Duo. "You have six hours until your medication reduces itself to a level that will be safe enough to allow you to sleep."  
  
"You don't even know what I'm taking," Duo challenged, not sure of his own statement.  
  
"Do you?" Heero shot back.  
  
Duo licked suddenly dry lips and echoed Heero angrily. "Do you?"  
  
"No," Heero replied.  
  
Duo couldn't help his pained expression. "Neither do I," he admitted bleakly. "They won't tell me and, when I tried to hack to find out, it was so classified and pass protected that the whole code line unraveled when I tried to decipher it." Heero nodded, confirming that he had met with the same lack of success. "They give them to me," Duo told him. "They don't come from a pharmacy. I tried to get several pharmacists to tell me what they are, but I haven't found anyone who can identify them."  
  
"What are there effects?" Heero asked.  
  
Duo shrugged. "They make me dizzy for about fifteen minutes after I take them, but I haven't felt any other reaction."  
  
"Curious," Heero replied thoughtfully. "I assumed that they were drugs for mental instability and to make you susceptible to direction."  
  
Duo moved back into the living room, feet plodding as he tried to work against the pull of gravity and the lassitude caused by his drug cocktail. "I haven't been very good at taking direction, lately, so I doubt that's what they're for."  
  
Duo paced, hating the way his joints popped and protested. Heero seemed at ease, as if he had grown up on Earth, and Duo wondered if he had. There was so little he knew about the ex pilot of Wing. They had only been on a handful of missions together during the war and they hadn't been on the best of terms even then. Like oil and water, Duo thought, their opposed personalities then. Now, they were more alike, more dark and morose, more likely to understand a shared reluctance to deal with society.  
  
"Okay," Duo said, almost to himself. "You can sleep on the couch and gawk at me for a few days. Sorry for the rough accommodations, but I only have the one gel bed, and I'm not giving it to you. It's the only thing I can sleep on planet side without waking up in a knot."  
  
"Acceptable," Heero replied, face unreadable. Duo was sure it wouldn't have changed no matter what Duo had said, even if his reply had been 'go to Hell'.  
  
Heero was still in soldier mode, and it seemed he hadn't given up being a soldier as a profession. Special ops. For who? For the Colonies? It made Duo nervous to imagine them indulging in stealth operations. What had happened to peace and trust between Earth and the Colonies?  
  
Heero was silent, offering nothing in the way of conversation. His dark, blue eyes were studying the apartment, though Duo was sure he had been over every inch already before Duo had arrived home.  
  
"I don't want to fight again," Duo said suddenly and Heero turned those eyes on him. They were full of shadows and old pains; a lifetime spent killing and fighting for one thing or another.  
  
"I didn't ask you to fight," Heero replied. "We are at peace. There are no more Gundams, no more wars to join."  
  
"Good," Duo replied with some relief. "Not even to get off of this dirt ball, Heero. I'd rather spend the rest of my life-"  
  
"It is nothing like that," Heero strangely assured him, an edge to his voice, as if Duo had accused him of something he didn't like.  
  
"Okay," Duo replied, just as edgy, but for different reasons. He hated mysteries. He hated being in the dark about his own situation. He had suffered with that for four years, mind constantly trying to understand his own, forced predicament and why it had befallen him alone out of all the pilots. Theories had abounded in his head, but, conjecture all he liked, answers were never forthcoming.  
  
"Answer me one thing, Heero, if you won't say anything else," Duo requested, trying not to sound needy and desperate. "These superiors of yours... can you promise me that they can get me into space again?"  
  
Heero nodded. "They can, if you suit their needs."  
  
"Always a charge," Duo growled bitterly.  
  
"You know there is," Heero replied simply. "This much I will tell you, their goal is to keep the peace."  
  
And how did he fit into that plan? Duo wondered, but knew better than to question Heero further. Heero's face was set like stone, his lips thinned as he waited to voice his rejection of any further questioning.  
  
"Six hours...," Duo sighed. "I don't really want to pace the floor that long. I think I'll go down to the gym and work out. Make yourself comfort-"  
  
"I am now your bodyguard," Heero replied. "I will be expected to follow you every where."  
  
Duo frowned and then said jokingly, "I hope you aren't expecting to tag along when I try and get my girlfriend into the bedroom for some one on one?"  
  
Heero's eyes were like ice. "You have several friends, none of them close and none of them sexual partners. Lying at this point is detrimental to my analysis of your condition."  
  
Duo felt his face go hot and his fists clenched. "Uh, it was just a joke, I guess. What I was getting at, was that I don't WANT you to follow me everywhere. I kind of like to be alone sometimes... well, most times."  
  
"Why?" Heero asked.  
  
Duo felt his mouth go dry. Why? It echoed on down to the bottom of his soul. Why? "Don't you?"  
  
"No," Heero replied and Duo was surprised. He couldn't imagine Heero liking company of any kind. Duo almost suspected Heero of making his own kind of joke, but he could see that the man was serious.  
  
"I... uh... don't know," Duo replied at last, stumbling to find his own reason. "It's so hard, most times, to deal with people. I can't... It's like I have so many of my own problems. Being normal, being friendly, listening to other people's problems, hearing them talk about this or that... it's like a big pressure, a mental kind of pain actually, and I find I can't stand it for long. Doesn't make me popular in the long term, but for short periods of time, I can be the life of the party." Duo tried to smile and failed. "So, there you go. Add that to your Duo Maxwell's screwed up check list while I get my gym clothes on."  
  
Duo had time to wonder what exactly Heero did think of him while he dressed in a pair of black shorts and a white tank top. Slipping on his socks and gym shoes, he stopped by a full length mirror and felt the wave of depression that usually accompanied anything more than a brief glance at his reflection. Long, thin legs, long arms with overlarge, long fingered hands, he still looked like a boy, a boy on the verge of becoming tall with shoulders threatening to fan out into something impressive. It was a false promise, shadows of a manhood that had fallen short of expectation. Another why that Duo couldn't answer. It was as if his body had been frozen in time, forever the youthful Gundam pilot. He had learned to hate his reflection. He hated it even more now that he had seen Heero, seen how much his ex comrade had fulfilled his promise.  
  
Duo felt a flush burn his cheeks as he left the safety of his bedroom. He tried not to look at Heero as he went to the door and began to undo the locks. He could feel Heero's eyes on him, assessing him, maybe, and making note of all his flaws. Duo almost expected a derisive laugh at his expense, but he knew that Heero seldom laughed or even smiled. Still, Duo imagined disgust and it made him angry, real or imagined. He felt the need to say," I'm small, but I'm wiry. I know I look like an easy mark, but-"  
  
"I know your training," Heero replied, "It is formidable." His voice was surprisingly soft, as if he understood Duo's shyness about his body and felt some sympathy.  
  
Duo looked over his shoulder at Heero with knitted brows as he opened the door. "Thanks," he said and then self deprecatingly, not able to keep from pricking at his own shortcomings, "So, body guard, are you going to keep people from kicking sand in my face?"  
  
Heero didn't understand the reference, but he replied, "You will not be bothered in any way, during my observation period, but I don't believe that my help is necessary in the area of your self defense. My position as your body guard is only a cover."  
  
"Okay, meaning, you're not really going to get your hands dirty protecting me unless you really have to," Duo translated.  
  
"Yes." Heero took out a comb and simply combed his hair over and down one side of his face, almost like Trowa, but not so severe. When he looked into Duo's eyes, Duo started. Heero's eyes were brown and contacts glinted there.  
  
"That's going to be enough of a disguise?" Duo wondered as he moved out into the hall, sneakers squeaking ever so slightly.  
  
"People identify acquaintances by certain outstanding body features," Heero explained as he took a position two steps behind Duo and followed. "During my training, I learned that people who know me only slightly, focus mainly on my hair and my eyes to identify me. Changing those features gave me instant anonymity with them."  
  
"So, cutting my braid off and keeping on my sunglasses will keep people from knowing me?" Duo wondered.  
  
"No," Heero replied. "You are a unique looking individual. You have many visual identifiers."  
  
"Oh," Duo replied, wondering if that was good in Heero's book or bad. He said absently, thoughts still on his own looks, "We didn't spend a lot of time together during the war, but I'd know you anywhere, no matter what you did to yourself."  
  
"Hn?" Heero grunted and Duo heard his own words as if there was a time delay. He bit his lip, waiting for Heero to ask further about his statement, but Heero didn't ask and for that, Duo was grateful. How could he explain to Heero that the man had mesmerized him since their first meeting and that he had spent the war hoping to see the wild, dangerous pilot of Wing again? He couldn't and he didn't want to try.  
  
Duo shivered. The hallways were cold. Berating himself for not wearing his coat, he was eager to begin exercising to warm up. The coat would have given him some cover too, he thought. The alcohol and the medication must have been effecting his judgment. At any other time, Duo would never have felt comfortable enough to expose his meager body so plainly. He was too aware that Heero was behind him, staring at a bony ass and ghost pale skin. Like a big, damned frog, Duo thought to himself, he was all arms and legs. All he needed was a lily pad and some flies.  
  
"Do you have a trainer?" Heero suddenly asked as Duo opened the door to the gym and entered the spacious room, it's floor covered in mats and exercise equipment. No one else was there. It was still early enough for most people to still be at work.  
  
"No," Duo replied.   
  
"Which exercises do you frequently execute?"  
  
Duo turned to blink at Heero. "Uh, treadmill, mostly... and I practice my martial arts when... uh, when no one else is here."  
  
Heero frowned, looking over the equipment. "Treadmill. Why?"  
  
Duo shrugged. "I don't get out much. I need to walk. Helps me think."  
  
"Treadmills are inefficient," Heero explained. "They are too easy. They don't maintain the right muscle groups to sustain any real running over real terrain."  
  
"Well...," Duo scratched his head, trying to figure out where Heero was going with the conversation. "I'm not a terrorist any more, Heero. I won't be running from Oz, so walking's good enough exercise for me. In case you haven't noticed, I'm skinny. I have to watch how much fat I work off or I might disappear all together."  
  
"A healthy diet, and the proper exercises, would correct your faults," Heero replied.  
  
Heero was tall. Heero was built solid, a wall of muscle, bronze skin, and good looks. Next to him, Duo was a pale, short, wraith, a stick figure, he thought, without much hope of ever being anything more. Heero was being either cruel or terribly optimistic.  
  
"The treadmill is acceptable at this time," Heero said. "You must avoid strenuous activity until drugs and alcohol have reduced themselves in your system to safe levels. One hour of walking at a steady pace should suffice."  
  
"Okay," Duo replied and shrugged as he headed for a treadmill. "That was a long way to go for me to be do exactly what I had planned to do in the first place, Heero." Duo gave him a grateful look as he turned on the treadmill and began walking. "I appreciate the concern, though."  
  
Duo was being effected by the drugs more than he realized. After several steps, he mis-stepped and fell, falling off the back of the treadmill. Heero was there to catch him. Duo was caught off guard by Heero's strong, competent hands, holding him up when he thought he would be sprawling onto the floor. He tried to regain his balance. Instead, they both went down in a jumble of Duo's flailing white limbs.  
  
Duo felt his skin against Heero's fuzzy turtleneck sweater, Heero's face next to his, Heero's grunt of breath, as Duo fell on top of him, going into Duo's ear, warm and enticing. They froze like that, both of them clutching at each other, as they recovered from surprise, then Heero was pushing Duo gently off and standing up again. Duo kept sitting where Heero had deposited him, blinking as he felt a warm rush go through him. It was startling, as unexpected as the fall, and confusing.  
  
"Are you injured?" Heero asked, perhaps wondering why Duo wasn't moving.  
  
"No," Duo managed to reply and then, giving the lie to that statement, his body decided to react to the alcohol, drugs, fall, and confusion in a predictable manner. Duo bent sideways and threw up.  
  
Heero crouched close and held Duo's braid out of the way while he retched. When Duo's stomach finally ceased trying to turn itself inside out, Duo leaned over the mess he had made and searched frantically. Beer, bile, and small capsules. Duo anxiously tried to pick the capsules out and failed, they were too far gone, disintegrating as soon as he touched them.  
  
"No!" Duo snarled in anger and need. "I threw them up. They didn't dissolve all the way!"  
  
Heero stared at the mess as well, frowning as he said simply, "Taking more would be wrong. You don't know how much of this was actually absorbed by your system. It would be better to wait until your next scheduled treatment." He didn't say 'I told you so,' about the mixture of beer and medication, but Duo was too agitated to care.  
  
"They'll know!" Duo almost whimpered. "They'll check my system and see that I didn't take them! They'll put a mark against me on my record!"  
  
"If you explain-" Heero began reasonably.  
  
Duo fisted Heero's sweater with both hands, saying through gritted teeth, "They don't care, Heero! They needed proof that I wasn't cooperating to keep me grounded and I gave it to them!"  
  
Heero slowly pulled Duo's hands off of him and stood up. His expression was irritable, but patient, one an adult would use on a child refusing to face reality. "You know that they never intend to allow you into space again. Taking this medication, visiting the doctors and the psychiatrist, living by their rules will never gain you your release papers." He held out a hand to Duo. "I will help you back to your apartment. Without the drugs and the alcohol, you will be able to rest now."  
  
Duo felt humiliated. Stinking of vomit, weakness, both mental and physical, plain for Heero to see, Duo didn't have any doubt that Heero had already made up his mind about what to report to his superiors. Duo Maxwell was unsuitable. With one, stupid, rebellious move, drinking a beer with his medication, Duo had crushed his last hope of seeing space again. He was as worthless as everyone had been saying all along, out of control, dangerous to himself and everyone else around him, and mentally unstable without a doubt the way he was shaking now and trying not to cry.  
  
Duo couldn't walk. Depression overwhelmed him. What did it matter where he went? Heero was right, that the government never meant to release him no matter what he did to please them, and he had known it all along. Heero had ripped away his comfortable self delusion of slim hope and it had been the only thing keeping him going.  
  
Heero picked him up in strong arms, completing the picture of helpless child that Duo had tried to avoid. He tried to protest, but his voice was gone and he was afraid of sobbing. It was a relief not to struggle against gravity, a relief to close his eyes and let Heero do what ever he wanted to him, a relief to close up, mentally, like a clam and avoid his bleak future as long as possible.  
  
Competent hands, strong and calloused, pulled off Duo's shirt. Duo came back to himself and shivered as he felt his back against a soft gel bed and felt blankets being drawn up to his chin. His shorts were still on, but his shoes and socks were gone as well. A wet cloth bathed his face, wiping away the last traces of vomit, and a cold drink pressed against his lips, water a welcome balm on his sore throat.  
  
Duo opened his eyes, mere slits, and saw that he was in his apartment and in his own bed with Heero hovering over him. The man checked his pulse, checked his temperature with a soldier's efficiency and expressionless face. It was as if his hands belonged to someone else, as if he had borrowed them from some caring nurse. The rest of his body language didn't reflect the compassion of those hands. Heero's body was tense, rigid, uncomfortable with the duty he was performing. His eyes were serious, deep with concentration on his task, but considering many other things at the same time. Duo knew what those things were. He knew that Heero HAD made up his mind, that his report was finished and ready to be sent to his superiors. It was strange that his lips were set hard as if on bitterness, as if he didn't enjoy what he was thinking about.  
  
"Sorry," Duo said hoarsely.  
  
Heero raised an eyebrow. "I should have known that exercise at the gym was beyond your ability."  
  
"Hm, well... thanks for bringing me here. " Duo swallowed and tried not to cry. "Guess... Guess you'll be going now."  
  
"No," Heero replied.  
  
"No?" Duo blinked, trying to clear his head enough to understand. "You know I can't do whatever you were evaluating me for. Why stick around?"  
  
Heero pursed his lips as he neatly folded the wet cloth in his hands and put it aside. "I will need to find an alternate operative. That will take time. I will need a base from which to work from. If you will allow me to stay here, I will compensate you by training you in the correct way to exercise and to take care of your body for optimum performance."  
  
"A body guard and a personal trainer?" Duo whispered, trying to get his mind around that. "Why bother? Why not just get a place somewhere else?"  
  
Heero gave Duo a slow look up and down. "You need help."  
  
"Are you sure you're Heero Yuy?" Duo wondered in shock.  
  
Heero grimaced. "I am not without emotions or concern for a comrade in arms."  
  
"Ex comrade in arms," Duo corrected absently and then said, "So, you're just trying to help out an old pilot buddy?" When Heero gave one nod, Duo tried to accept it, tried to fit this new image of Heero into the place in his mind where he had kept a cold, unfeeling image of him for so long. "I don't believe you," Duo said at last, suspicious, but he was managing a weak smile anyway, "but I don't really give a damn, right now, what happens, so, yeah, stay, make yourself at home, play house for all I care."  
  
Duo turned on his side and tried to sleep. His smile grew wider even as his heart ached for the hope that had been ripped from him so cruelly. He wondered what it would be like, waking up every day with Heero Yuy as a roommate. Duo found that he was looking forward to it, that anticipation had replaced the pain and the sadness at least in a small way. It was enough for now, enough to keep him WANTING to wake up to a new day.


	3. Physical

Duo trembled, his arms straining to keep the weigh above him up and off him. Heero's face, very close to his own, was stern and unforgiving, cobalt blue eyes wells to the soul of a merciless man.  
  
"P-please, Heero..," Duo begged. "C-Can't...!"  
  
"You can," Heero replied. "You will."  
  
Warm breath against his face, slight smell of some masculine aftershave filling his senses. At any other time, Duo might have enjoyed it, enjoyed Heero so close, face close enough to... but his mind was filled with other, more immediate problems, problems that his body shrieked at him to solve at once.  
  
He couldn't hold it any longer, Duo thought wildly. That weight, that he was so desperately keeping at bay, was going to come down hard and... Heero's hands caught the barbells and lifted them effortlessly back onto the stand above Duo's head. Duo shivered in relief. For a moment, he had wondered if Heero would miscalculate, step in one second too late to stop Duo from dropping that barbell onto his chest and crushing his narrow ribcage. So far, his timing had been impeccable, but it never ceased to worry Duo that the Perfect Soldier might develop a flaw at the worst possible moment.  
  
"Better," Heero grunted as he stepped away and began calibrating another exercise machine for Duo.   
  
Duo closed his eyes, grateful that Heero was allowing him the privacy to pull himself back together. Duo took a breath and let it out slowly. He did this several times until his trembling stopped and he convinced his heart to stop its wild beating. Only then was he able to sit up, using a small hand towel to wipe the sweat from his forehead, and take notice of what new torture Heero wanted to put him through.  
  
"Leg weights?" Duo exclaimed incredulously as he stood up and moved over to the machine, "Heero, I'm on leg weights every time I get out of a chair! This gravity is killing me as it is. I don't need to add to it!"  
  
Heero was unsympathetic. "It's clear that you haven't attempted to acclimate your muscles to Earth's gravity in the four years that you have been grounded. If you could explain your reasoning behind your lack of attention to something so necessary, I can amend my opinion on that matter."  
  
"Heero speak for, 'I think you're a lazy ass, Duo, please correct me on that.'" Duo translated sourly as he positioned himself in the machine. As Heero strapped on the leg weights, Duo continued self deprecatingly, "Well, I wish I could change your opinion about that, but I think it's the plain truth. I'm just so tired all of the time..."  
  
"Your medication," Heero surmised. "With your permission, I would like to have the pills tested to find out their actual medicinal properties. I have contacts with a lab."  
  
"No can do!" Duo replied anxiously. He couldn't explain, even to himself, why the very thought of Heero taking away his pills made him feel on the verge of panic. "They check for them in my system. If you take some away, they'll know, they'll report me."  
  
"I wouldn't need to take them," Heero explained, studying Duo curiously. He finished adjusting the weights, but he didn't straighten. He stayed in position at Duo's feet, looking like a bronzed, Greek statue of an athlete in his white shorts and white tee shirt, as he reassured Duo by saying, " A few grains would suffice."  
  
"How few?" Duo replied, not comforted at all.  
  
"Minute," Heero clarified.  
  
"No," Duo refused without hesitation or thought, a gut reaction that was automatic. He scowled down at his feet while Heero continued to look puzzled, more concerned about the awkward appearance of his feet, than in his own strange reaction to Heero's suggestion.  
  
In black, hi top sneakers, Duo's feet looked far too large on his skinny legs. Heero had his hands resting on each of his ankles. It made Duo uncomfortable, knowing that Heero could feel how small they were, how useless for what Heero intended. Weak, worthless, and weird, Duo labeled himself bleakly. Why Heero was even bothering with him was unfathomable. There had to be a catch, an ulterior motive, a game in play. Duo was still too street wise to believe anything else.  
  
"Slow," Heero said, putting aside the mystery of Duo's reaction for the moment, and turning his attention on the weight machine. "Lift with a steady motion. The goal is to strengthen the muscles, not strain them. If you feel pain of any kind, you are doing it improperly."  
  
"K," Duo breathed and did as Heero directed. He was able to finish six leg lifts before he felt a twinge. "Hurts," he explained as Heero lifted a critical eyebrow. Heero took off some of the weight and Duo tried again. He managed ten more legs lifts and then shook his head. "I'm done."  
  
Heero didn't comment. He took off the leg weights and put a hand out to help Duo sit up. He said, "We don't have sufficient time to begin another exercise. I have a meeting. I'll escort you back to your apartment before I go."  
  
"Meeting?" Duo wiped his sweating face with his towel and then let the towel drape over his shoulder as he asked, "Is it a meeting with your superiors?"  
  
"No," Heero replied and didn't explain further. His manner had turned cold, his motions becoming efficient and quick as he helped Duo to his feet and gathered up their gym bags.  
  
Duo was looking up at Heero. He was a pale, frail, ghost next to the ex Gundam pilot. "Guess you don't trust me," Duo surmised softly and felt the place where his self esteem used to be, ache and grow darker.  
  
"Trust is not something I am allowed to indulge in," Heero explained. "Secrecy is part of my work. It is necessary and not indicative of my estimation of your trustworthiness."  
  
Duo worked over that and then asked, "You do trust me then?"  
  
"I don't know you," Heero replied reasonably.  
  
Heero motioned Duo to proceed him out of the gym. Curious eyes followed them, the few other patrons wondering about Heero, trying to guess what his relationship was to the notorious pilot of Deathscythe; a few maybe even trying to estimate how much money they could get for such information. "We seldom worked together during the war," Heero continued, "and two days in your company is not enough to form any kind of opinion about your trustworthiness."  
  
"Guess you're right," Duo said, feeling a little better.  
  
When they entered Duo's apartment, Duo felt his usual relief when the door was closed and locked, safe in his haven once more. He looked at Heero as he sat in a chair and turned on the television with a remote.   
  
"Go ahead and shower first," Duo told him. "I can wait."  
  
"Hn," Heero grunted, a sound that expressed both agreement and gratitude, as he headed into the bedroom.  
  
Duo stared after him, only half listening to the news displayed on the television. Two days Heero had been living with him. Two days that Heero had been sleeping on that couch, drinking from his cups, eating on his plates, breathing the same air, being a warm, welcome presence in Duo's apartment. Far from being intrusive or disruptive, Heero's quiet, thoughtful, meticulous, and calming presence had been a wonderful respite from loneliness.  
  
Heero wasn't cold, Duo had discovered, only too used to wearing an emotionless mask for the benefit of enemies. His actions were contrary to that stone like expression. He was always ready to help Duo, always ready to do his share of the housework, always willing to step in and be of service.   
  
Of service. Duo thought about that, lips pursed and brows drawn down over his purple eyes. Heero had been raised and trained thoroughly to do just that, serve with complete, single minded selflessness in the protection of those who desired peace. Duo wondered if Heero's actions towards him were nothing more than that; unconscious reflexes instead of any genuine concern for his well being, any real sense of friendship. It made more sense to Duo, to believe that about Heero, than to accept that Heero could actually care about him.  
  
"In other news, Duo Maxwell, one time war hero and pilot of the Gundam Deathscythe, was reported to have assaulted this man, Wald Gruen, at nightclub Zeo, last night."  
  
Duo blinked and looked at the television screen. A rather large man, balding, ugly, and sweating nervously, stuttered, "H-he was threatening my girlfriend! Said- well, he said he wanted to do her in a graveyard and carve a scythe on her tits! Of course, I - I tried to stop him, but he's a Gundam pilot!" The man didn't have a mark on him, Duo noticed as the man continued in outrage, "He beat me bloody and then just up and left! I demand compensation! If the government is going to let crazies like that run around with decent civilians, then they should be ready to pay for the damages!"  
  
"Charges easily refuted," Heero said from the bedroom doorway as he toweled his hair dry. He was naked, body glittering with water drops. Duo stared and swallowed convulsively as Heero continued, "There are surveillance cameras throughout this building that can attest to the fact that you did not go anywhere last night."  
  
Duo found his tongue with difficulty. "Doesn't matter. The government will pay and the legend of Shinigami will grow, bolstering their case that I should be locked up."  
  
Heero didn't question Duo's line of reasoning. He nodded, as if he understood, and retreated back into the bedroom to dress. He had only brought a small valise with him when he had first appeared at the apartment, but a subsequence suitcase had been delivered shortly after a phone call. Duo had given Heero a few drawers in his dresser to use and a space on the sink for his toiletries, but Heero didn't have much, his clothing consisting of a few dark shirts, the one turtleneck, a pair of shorts, a workout shirt, and two pairs of dark jeans. Where ever he was going, what ever work he was going to perform, it was informal.  
  
Duo was still coming to grips with having seen Heero naked. The man had been perfect, absolutely perfect, every muscle toned, every line smooth and in proportion. Scattered with drops of water like glittering diamonds, the member resting in the dark, wet hair between Heero's legs, slightly swollen from the heat of the water, had been as perfect as the rest of him.  
  
Duo, curled up in his chair, arms wrapped tightly about an inadequate jumble of limbs and white skin, felt his face go hot . Aside from some unfinished fumbling with a few girls and one male friend, sex for Duo had been restricted to a few, disturbing, sexual dreams about a shadowy male and some alone time with his right hand. Like the rest of him, sexual desire was underdeveloped, seldom needing Duo's attention. Seeing Heero naked stirred up far more feelings of inadequacy and embarrassment than any strong desire.  
  
It was obvious that Heero was comfortable with his own body, used to being in rough conditions, or sharing quarters with a lot of men. It also seemed obvious, Duo thought, with a pang of sharp regret, that Heero wasn't sexually interested in him. His stance, his relaxed body, and his casual attitude seemed to say, plainer than words, that an agenda, whether work related or, a slimmer hope, friendship based, was the only thing on Heero's mind.   
  
"Stupid!" Duo muttered. Stupid to have even entertained the idea that Heero might have been interested in him; a bisexual, ugly, freak who was too confused to even know what he wanted and too messed up to even perform if he ever did manage to figure it out.  
  
Absence of sexuality aside, Duo thought bleakly, he had still craved Heero on a more honest level, having horded a spark of hope through the war, and in the years afterwards, in what Duo now realized was a ridiculous, childish fantasy, that he would meet Heero again in peacetime and be able to fan that hope into a blaze.  
  
Why Heero? Duo tried to think of the reason his hope had first formed, his fantasy that something might happen between them some day. During the war, Heero had been passionate and dedicated in the fight for peace, but in all other areas, he had been cool, plainly letting Duo know that his companionship wasn't wanted outside of completing a mission. Still, Duo had sometimes caught a hint of humor crossing the Perfect Soldier's face, and once, he had experienced an eye meeting eye moment in which Duo had felt as if Heero had hugged him and confided in him. That momentary humor, and that one look of interest, had made the spark that Duo had carried around like a precious treasure for years.  
  
It was hard for Duo to school his face into a smile, to lift the mask of happy go lucky Duo Maxwell. During the war, and throughout his four years of 'treatment', he had perfected it, perfected the smile, perfected even a false twinkle in his eyes, and the casual, humorous tone in his voice. He had learned never to show weakness, never to let someone see that he could be hurt, knowing that enemies were ready to exploit it.  
  
With Duo's fellow pilots, wearing the mask had been a way to lighten their mood, bring smiles to their faces, and to not burden them with problems he had always felt that he could handle himself. They had been his friends, even standoffish, cold Heero, and Duo had been more than willing to sacrifice his own comfort for theirs. Why was it so hard to wear the mask now? Duo wondered. Maybe it was because he had let Heero see underneath the mask for a little bit, let him see the vulnerability no one else ever had, and maybe it was because Heero, strangely, was showing compassion and concern, putting Duo off balance, disrupting his thoughts so that he couldn't muster, completely, his controlled facade. Whatever it was, when Heero returned from the bedroom, dressed in a black shirt and dark pants, Duo still wasn't ready to face him with much hope of hiding his emotions completely.  
  
"Will you be going out?" Heero wondered.  
  
Duo shook his head and it ended as a nervous jerk of his chin as he replied, "Not after that news report. They'll be hounding me to get my side of the story, not that they'd print anything I said anyway. Making it up is more their style."  
  
Heero nodded and said, as he tucked his wallet and passport into his back pocket, "You're not used to exercising. You're going to be sore. When I return, I'll give you a massage to loosen up any spasms."  
  
Duo felt that warm flush creep across his cheeks again and he said in a choked whisper, "Massage?"  
  
Heero nodded again as he headed for the door, mind on his business and not noticing Duo's discomfiture. Duo found his voice as Heero undid the locks. "Uh, Heero?"  
  
Heero kept working the locks. "Yes, Duo?"  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Why?" Heero echoed.  
  
"You said it was because I was an old pal and all, but...," Duo paused, licked nervous lips, and then plowed on, "It's gotta be more than that. You have better things to do than to sit with my scrawny ass in an exercise room and better places to be while you look for a new operative, than to be hunkering in my fish bowl and getting your good name smeared along with mine, so, I'm asking you straight out... Why?"  
  
Duo could imagine Heero frowning, though he couldn' see it, the man not wanting to reveal anything about himself or his motives, old habits hard to put aside. At last, as he opened the door, Heero offered a bone to Duo, albeit a meager one, "I missed you," he replied and then was gone, closing the door behind him, the locks sounding loudly in the sudden silence as they reactivated.  
  
Missed you. It echoed down deep inside of Duo and put to flight all of Duo's bitterness, his belief that Heero couldn't possibly care about him as a friend or anything else. Duo sank back into the cushion of the chair, hands gripping the arms hard as he shook his head in disbelief and then slowly smiled. Maybe it wasn't a declaration of love, or even an indication of romantic interest, but it was hope, it was a relighting of the spark within Duo. Stubborn spark. Stubborn heart. Duo's mind called him a fool and a dreamer, but he didn't stop smiling and he couldn't stop hoping as his heart began to fan that small spark into a flame.


	4. Monkey

Standing in the shower, Duo bowed his head and let the hot spray wash over him. His eyes were open, hands running soap over his body in lazy motions, touching a long, thin torso, ribs to count, hip bones that were sharp and angled with small globes for a butt, long legs like sticks, large feet, knobby elbows, long fingered hands, and lastly, the part of himself that had been of little interest to him now, but was suddenly the focus of all his attention, small and limp below his navel.  
  
Duo took the soap lower and let his hands play over that relaxed bit of flesh, let the soap, the warm water, and his long fingers stroke it and bring it to attention. Not so small now, but unsure of how it compared to others, Duo wondered, if Heero were to see it, what he would think. Whether Heero was gay, straight, or bi, he would have an opinion, Duo was sure. Heero would have a reaction whether favorable or unfavorable.  
  
Duo tried to be objective and couldn't. He felt a flush of uncertainty and he went limp under an onslaught of doubt about his ability to be desirable. That didn't help his self esteem and he found himself deciding against a long shower, eager to leave the scene of his inability to please even himself, behind.  
  
After drying off, Duo quickly slipped into an over large, white shirt and a pair of blue pajama bottoms with a drawstring at the top, unconsciously trying to hide his body from himself, as he made his way to the gel bed and slowly climbed onto it. Relaxing on his stomach, head nestled in a flat pillow, his gravity and exercise stressed muscles groaned in relief as his mind reached out for the forgetfulness of sleep, hoping to find a better place in dreams, one where Duo Maxwell wasn't such a failure.  
  
The opening and closing of a drawer alerted Duo that he wasn't alone. He wasn't sure how long he had been sleeping, but, as he opened his eyes and tried to focus, he suddenly wondered if he had actually woken up. In front of him, not three feet away, Duo found himself staring at Heero's naked ass. He had a perfect view between the ex-Gundam pilot's legs and the tantalizing flesh hanging there.  
  
Heero was bent over as he searched through his borrowed drawer for clothes. Not finding what he wanted right away, Duo was given time to start fantasizing, and to grow very warm, before Heero straightened again with a black tee shirt in his hands and some cotton briefs. Duo watched him dress, watched the slide of muscle under bronze skin and the perfect grace, almost like a dancer's, as Heero stood on one foot and then the other to slip on the briefs. Shrugging into the tee shirt, Heero ran a hand through his unruly chocolate hair and then turned his head to regard Duo in an unsurprised fashion, as if he had known that Duo was watching all along.  
  
"Sore?" Heero asked in a tone that didn't give any indication of his mood or thoughts.  
  
"Sore?" Duo echoed in confusion as he felt embarrassment sting him from head to toe. He began to sit up, but Heero motioned him not to. Duo agreed with him when the agonizing pain of overworked muscles shot along every nerve. He groaned, "Yeah, real sore!" and felt pathetic.  
  
Heero didn't bother to put on the comfortable pair of jeans he had chosen from the drawer. He left them on the dresser, and, to Duo's shock, he climbed onto the bed, negotiated the give of the gel mattress, and then straddled Duo's lower hips.  
  
"H-Heero!" Duo croaked, not sure what to think or what to say as his heart began hammering wildly.  
  
"The message, remember?" Heero reminded him as his hands slid up under Duo's loose shirt. "I told you that your muscles would be stiff and sore and that I would give you a massage to help you."  
  
"Oh, uh, right," Duo stammered as he turned his face towards the pillow to hide his anxiety and his confusion. "Just surprised me, that's all. Uh, okay, you can go ahead with that." It sounded stupid in his own ears. Duo couldn't keep his face from burning or his mind from thinking about where a massage could lead to.  
  
It wasn't going to lead to anything, Duo firmly told himself. Heero had clearly taken on the persona of a trainer. He was as unconcerned about straddling Duo's hips half dressed as he was about having been bent over, completely nude, in front of Duo earlier. His hands weren't erotic or suggestive. They kneaded tight muscles in a business like fashion. When Duo glanced behind him, hoping to catch a glimpse on Heero's face of what the man was thinking, he felt disappointment, mingled with slight relief, to see that Heero's face was blank, only a small crease of concentration between his blue eyes indicating anything other than perfect professionalism.  
  
Duo wondered at his feeling of relief, but he didn't need to analyze it long. Heero was almost larger than life, the subject of a fantasy that had haunted Duo for many years. It was almost frightening to consider that it might become more than just fantasy, that Heero might be making overtures, intending to turn a simple massage into a seduction.  
  
Duo found himself concentrating on Heero's hands, closing his eyes to heighten his awareness in an attempt to, maybe, catch Heero off guard, catch him revealing his intentions with the motions of his hands. It was ridiculous and so very needy, Duo thought, but he couldn't stop from doing it and he couldn't stop from hoping, fear or no fear, that Heero's hands would stray, would soften and caress, would reveal that Heero was interested in Duo at a deeper level.  
  
At first, it was pain as Heero worked Duo's knotted joints loose, and then it was pleasure and Duo couldn't help a few moans uttered behind gritted teeth. Heero's hands, calloused at the tips and along their palms, gripped and kneaded for what seemed like forever and then they became very gentle, smoothing over Duo's back, feeling delicately along the knobs of Duo's spine and neck. Duo suddenly became aware of Heero's crotch pressed against his ass as Heero's hands stilled and pressed flat along Duo's spine.  
  
"I'm bisexual," Duo said so suddenly that he surprised himself. He hid his face in his pillow, mortified, waiting for a violent reaction from Heero.  
  
"I know," Heero said simply.  
  
Duo stiffened, confused and then growing suspicious and angry. "You do? You seem to know a Hell of a lot about me, Heero. Are you a stalker or something? I think you need to explain yourself!"  
  
Heero shrugged and Duo could feel it through his hands on his back. "I needed to know everything about you before I approached you about this position as an operative. There was surveillance. I did have to research your files. You clearly stated, in your medical records, that you are a non practicing bisexual."  
  
"You even know I'm a virgin?!" Duo suddenly squirmed out from under Heero and backed up until he touched the head board, ignoring the renewed pang of strained muscles, knees drawn up defensively and amethyst eyes snapping with temper.   
  
Heero mistook his response for embarrassment, "It isn't unusual to be sexually stimulated by a massage. You shouldn't be alarmed by it or feel that I might be offended."  
  
"I am alarmed that you put your perfect paws into my personal life without my permission!" Duo snarled. "What gave you the right?"  
  
Heero's face went very intense as he replied, "People's lives are at stake. That gave me the right. I can't afford to make a mistake in my choice." Heero didn't look comfortable with it. He added, as if half in apology and half in some frustration, "Much of your file was code protected, as you've already found out. I couldn't access the files pertaining to your 'judgment of confinement'."  
  
Duo went bitter as Heero moved off of the bed and went to take his pants from the dresser. As the man pulled them on, Duo replied, "I know what reason they gave in my file to keep me grounded. Acts of aggression, they called it."  
  
"Against whom?" Heero wondered with lifted eyebrows as he turned back to the bed and zipped his pants. It seemed too much like an 'after the sex' scene and Duo didn't like it. He felt vulnerable, almost taken advantage of, though he knew that wasn't true. Heero would have had to have been actually making sexual overtures for that feeling to be valid.  
  
"I don't want to talk about it," Duo replied shortly. His over large shirt was slipping off one bony shoulder, his pants were two sizes too large. He was swimming in his clothes, feeling childlike and at a disadvantage in front of the strong, competent looking Heero. Remembering those broad hands touching his bony spine, Duo flushed.  
  
Something within Duo's body set off an alarm. At once, as if anger, embarrassment, and frustration at Heero had never occurred, Duo shoved loose strands of hair from his face as he forced himself to leave the bed. Padding barefoot out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, he refused to groan or limp as his body shrugged off Heero's earlier ministrations and began to knot up again.  
  
Duo started a pot of coffee. As it perked, he reached up into a cabinet and took out six bottles of pills. Lining them up along the kitchen counter, he opened each one and took out one pill. Meticulously placing each pill in front of the corresponding bottle, Duo stared for a long moment, reassuring himself that he had each one accounted for. He was aware of Heero standing in the doorway of the kitchen, watching him, but Duo didn't care. It was time, his body had set off an alarm, and he had to take those pills.  
  
"Duo," Heero began, but the stiffening of Duo's back and his low growl, made Heero fall silent.  
  
The coffee finished perking. Duo poured himself a steaming cup. One by one, with the greatest attention, Duo picked each pill up and swallowed it, taking a sip of coffee to wash it down each time. When the last one was ingested, Duo stared at the counter, making sure he hadn't missed any. Satisfied at last, he closed each bottle and put them back in their exact places in the cabinet.  
  
"Have you ever tried not taking them, Duo?" Heero wondered, finally breaking the silence.  
  
Duo turned, relaxed now, coffee cup in his hands and a slight, depressed smile on his face. "Taking what?" he felt half asleep, Heero's words not making much sense.  
  
Heero frowned. "Your pills. Have you ever tried not taking your pills?"  
  
Duo frowned back. "I don't remember." He felt disturbed by the very idea. Not take his pills? "Why ask?"  
  
Heero formed a strange 'stumped' expression on his face. It was like a computer suddenly being filled with illogical entries. Duo didn't compute. "It doesn't fit your personality profile to be so obedient of authority figures," Heero replied carefully, "I posed the question because you were just now taking your pills and you seemed unusually diligent in that execution."  
  
Duo felt a moment of anxiety, the same anxiety he had felt when Heero had suggested taking some of his medication and testing it. "I have to take them," he replied. "I don't remember being ' diligent' though. I just tossed them down with my coffee, didn't even think about it. As for taking them at all not fitting my personality profile, well, you don't know me, Heero. You never did, ya know?"  
  
Duo walked past him, padding barefoot into the living room, coffee cradled in his two hands as he settled into his favorite, overstuffed chair. Heero followed, still frowning, still looking stumped.  
  
Duo felt a flair of irritation. "Look, Yuy, just because I let you sit on my ass and feel me up on my back, doesn't mean I'm going to let you put me under a microscope! If you're going to analyze me every time I take a shit, then you can pack your bags and shoot yourself back into space!"  
  
"The massage wasn't a sexual overture of any kind," Heero told Duo.  
  
"Yeah, I know," Duo replied in a small, angry voice and ducked his face so that he was staring into his coffee and hidden by his chestnut bangs.  
  
Heero was quiet and then he said, "I don't like mysteries. I feel the need to always have correct information. It was a necessary requirement during the war and the uprising, and it is a requirement of my position now. I did not mean to offend you by this aspect of my training."  
  
"Hey!" Duo said with a smile that was only half sarcastic, "an apology! I don't remember the last time anyone bothered to give me one of those sincerely."  
  
Heero sat in a chair nearby. Duo expected him to sit ramrod straight, prepared for action. Instead, Heero slid back and put one foot up, balancing it on the opposite knee and bracing it with his hands. He was barefoot as well and he had masculine feet, wide, but strong, like a dancer's. He looked comfortable, relaxed, even friendly, though his face remained as unreadable as ever.  
  
"I'm not used to trusting people," Duo admitted as he looked down and took a sip of his coffee. The familiar haze of the drugs was taking hold. Anger dissipated and Duo was left with calm.  
  
"You shouldn't," Heero replied. "The people who are ordering your life at the moment don't have your well being as a priority."  
  
Duo shrugged despondently. "You're not telling me anything new."  
  
Heero was quiet for a full minute and then he said, as if he were speaking against his better judgment. "I am worried about you, Duo."  
  
Duo looked up, startled. "Huh?" The sound encompassed all of Duo's incredulity.  
  
Heero looked pain, a twitch near one eye, a thinning of his lips briefly. "I have emotions, Duo. I can care about someone."  
  
Duo felt guilty then. "It's just...," he tried to explain. "You never show that you do, or you didn't during the war. You used to say having 'attachments', allowing oneself to get emotionally invested in people or a cause, made for a poor soldier."  
  
"It does," Heero admitted, "but it doesn't mean that I didn't have them anyway."  
  
"Oh," Duo put his cup aside and leaned forward towards Heero, his shirt hanging open and showing his narrow chest and his small, pink nipples, as he asked earnestly, "Were you 'attached' to me during the war?"  
  
Duo felt a shiver go over him as he saw a small blush of color on each of Heero's cheeks. The man was staring at him, as if he were fighting against something that wouldn't allow him to respond. He licked nervous lips and then opened them to begin to speak, but then, his eyes flicked down to Duo's shirt and the bare expanse of Duo's naked chest. Duo could see his mind change gears abruptly. He frowned and then met Duo's eyes. Whatever he had been about to say was replaced with, "Duo, where's your cross?"  
  
Duo blinked, confused. "What cross?"


	5. Image

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (This chapter has attempted, non consensual sex)

"I know what you're doing," Duo snapped, arms crossed over his chest and hugging himself as he tried not to shout in anger. Heero, just walking through the door of Duo's apartment, paused with a raised eyebrow.  
  
"What do you think I'm doing?"  
  
"Every day, you go out and then you come back sweating and needing to change your clothes," Duo replied. "You aren't exercising with me. You're helping me and then going out and doing your own exercises somewhere else, aren't you?"  
  
Heero's face went tight. He closed the door behind him and made his way towards the bedroom as all the locks clicked into place. "I thought that it was best."  
  
"Why?" Duo asked as he followed, leaned against the doorjamb, and watched while Heero began pulling off his clothes.  
  
A week had gone by and they had both fallen into a routine of sorts. Wake up, have breakfast together, exercise in the gym, and then separate while Heero had gone to take care of his business, or at least that had been what Duo has assumed that he was doing. After finally dismissing the notion that Heero had become overly concerned with cleanliness, changing his clothes and showering twice a day, Duo had come to another conclusion entirely. All he needed now was for Heero to admit to it.  
  
"After your exercises, you are forced to rest," Heero explained. "I require an hour of training a day. It seemed inefficient to make you wait while I executed my exercises."  
  
"Why not tell me that?" Duo demanded. He squirmed, tightening his arms even more about himself, and tried not to lower his eyes from Heero's as the man dropped his pants, stepped out of them, and headed for the shower.  
  
"You appeared uncomfortable with the differences in our bodies," Heero replied before he passed the door of the bathroom, "I didn't want to further agitate you by displaying that I had a much higher level of exercise routine than you did."  
  
Duo turned away and hunched over himself, "Yeah, thanks!" he growled. "It looks like you learned some compassion for the weak while you were away."  
  
"You are not weak," Heero replied from the bathroom and then the shower went on and Duo was left to think about that statement, unable to reply and be heard over the sound of the water.  
  
Heero was obviously able to show some tact and compassion, but Duo didn't think it extended to lying about someone's abilities. That went against Heero's training, a training that required him to measure each person's abilities exactly, whether enemy or comrade in arms. So, if it was the truth, what did Heero mean by it? How was he, Duo, not weak? Duo found that he wanted that statement to be true, that he desperately needed something to bolster his non existent self esteem. Since Heero had arrived, ignoring his flaws had become almost impossible and Duo had found himself looking more and more into the mirror and hating his reflection, knowing that, next to Heero, he was nothing less than a stick figure, a joke, a caricature of what could have been a man.  
  
Duo made himself coffee, took his pills, and then settled into a chair to wait for Heero, to wait for his explanation. He needed one. He needed to know that Heero's words were true.  
  
Heero came in to the living room wearing a comfortable pair of pants, a cotton, black tee shirt, and rubbing a towel over his chocolate hair. He looked as if expected to talk and he snagged a chair with his bare foot and brought it closer to Duo's. Sitting down in it, he positioned himself on the edge, body leaning towards Duo's.  
  
"Explain," Duo said simply and hated the needy tone in his voice.  
  
"I have had time to observe you closely," Heero began. He draped the towel across his shoulders, his eyes intent on Duo, still studying him, trying to anticipate Duo's reaction to his next words so that he could prepare for that reaction. "Observing how you exercise, and seeing how your muscles react to stress and strain, I quickly concluded that you do have the ability to grow stronger, to improve your resistance to Earth's gravity, and to improve your stamina. It isn't a weakness of your body that is causing your difficulties."  
  
Duo scowled and stood up. He took a few steps away, seething. "What? Are you going to say that I'm just lazy?"  
  
"No," Heero assured him, paused, and then carefully said, "I think your pills are causing your difficulties, Duo." He went on to explain quickly, "I think they are effecting you both mentally and physically. I think that they were given to you as a means to control you, to keep you from having the energy to make trouble, to keep you from being fit enough to be an operative of any kind, and to, mentally, effect your memory." Duo turned and glared at that, puzzled, but Heero reminded him, "Your cross, Duo. Where is your cross? Besides your braid, you often told me that it was the most important thing in your life, that death was preferable to not having it, yet you don't remember it at all now."  
  
Heero pulled the towel from his neck and tossed it over the chair arm. He stood up, facing Duo. Duo couldn't help laughing, though it was a bitter, depressed sound. "I'm skinny as a rail and I don't have a muscle to call my own, Heero. You and the others grew up, but I never did! I'm stuck like this, Duo Maxwell, the teenager, the little Gundam Pilot with the stupid grin and the baby face! Now you're trying to tell me I'm like this because of those pills! I don't want to hear that! I can't hear that! You know why, Heero?"  
  
"Why?" Heero replied quietly.  
  
"Because I can't stop taking them!!" Duo shouted furiously, hands curling into fists and face twisting into an intense expression of hate and pain as he revealed the truth to Heero and faced it himself, knowing it already. "You're telling me, 'Hey, Duo, just stop taking those pills and you'll get to grow up', but... but... I tried that already... I thought that already... I'm not stupid, Heero. I'm not..." Duo collapsed into his chair again and put his face in his hands, trying not to break down all together. He muttered between his fingers, "Thanks for yanking away my little illusion of control. So nice of you." He went silent for a long moment and then sighed, "So, I'm a drug addict. Add that to your list of why Duo Maxwell should stay fucking grounded on Earth."  
  
A hand gently touched Duo's shoulder. Duo tensed and looked sideways at Heero, reluctant to leave the comforting shadow of his hands and face, but wanting to know if Heero was disgusted by him now. Heero didn't look disgusted. Instead, he looked concerned, his eyes glittering and determined, as he said, "You are not doing this to yourself. I'm going to help you."  
  
I miss you. I'm worried about you. I'm going to help you. It was like a row of dominoes stretching off into a hazy distance. Very slowly, Heero was setting them into motion, the dominoes his phrases, leading Duo to an understanding, but not ready to show Duo the end yet.  
  
"How?" Duo wondered, trying not to disgrace himself completely by crying, but the drugs were weakening him, making him vulnerable, just like his enemies wanted him to be. "Maybe your bosses could have helped me get away from the government, but, I'm sure you've already sent them your report. You don't need to tell me what they thought of it. You don't need to tell me that they're not going to help me because they don't need someone like me. So, what's the plan, Heero? How are you, and you alone, going to go up against a leg locator, addictive drugs, a system where everyone knows who I am on sight and has orders to watch and detain me at the slightest provocation, a medical establishment that helps enslave me by making sure I take my control drugs and by tweaking them whenever they think I'm getting 'upitty', and a psychologist who hides behind a veil of 'professionalism' and falsifies my psych report twice a month. Tell me the plan, Heero, because I would sure like to hear it!"  
  
"There is a weak link in every chain, a point where it can be attacked and overcome," Heero replied. "If you are patient, I will help you. I will make certain that you get into space, and away from these people."  
  
"I keep asking it, so I'll ask it again," Duo snapped back, "Why?"  
  
"Because you don't deserve to be treated this way," Heero replied and Duo felt a holding back, emotions shuttered behind Heero's cobalt blue eyes.  
  
"If that's what you think," Duo pointed out viciously, "Then why did you wait four years to come to my rescue?"  
  
It was plain that Heero didn't want to admit the truth, but he replied quietly, "I didn't know. I spent a great deal of time in space and the affairs of Earth, and the other Gundam pilots, weren't of any concern to me."  
  
"But they are now?" Duo rubbed at his eyes, feeling the hated weariness dragging him down, wanting him to sleep, making it hard to deal with Heero and everything else in his life. He forced himself to wait for Heero's reply, forced himself to wake up enough to care.  
  
"I can't reveal to you what brought you to my attention again, what made me research and discover what was happening in your life now," Heero replied with that detached, cold, soldier mode that Duo had learned to hate so much whenever he spoke about a mission. "It's classified." Heero took a step closer and his face changed subtlety as if he were making a great effort to overcome his ingrained training and open up to Duo. "This isn't about missions or operatives any longer, though, Duo. It's about you and it's about corruption. They are making you suffer unjustly."  
  
Duo sneered. "Are you so sure that it's unjust?"  
  
Heero narrowed his eyes, clearly surprised and suddenly wary. "Explain."  
  
Duo shrugged and looked away. "You must have this image of me that's innocent and good. You're not even questioning whether I deserve what I'm getting or not."  
  
"Do you deserve it?" Heero asked tightly.  
  
Duo went sour. "Maybe... I don't remember all that well. They told me that I tried to hurt somebody important... Milliardo Peacecraft, and that someone saw me talking to a terrorist, anti- unification, type, but... it's all kind of fuzzy."  
  
"The drugs," Heero surmised.  
  
Duo shrugged again and then frowned, wondering how much he had forgotten, how much of his earlier life had been stolen by those drugs. Was he even remembering Heero correctly? "You said that I had a cross and that I was real attached to it?"   
  
"Yes," Heero replied as if he were following Duo's thoughts and didn't seemed puzzled by the change in subject.  
  
Duo raked at his wild bangs with one hand and then rubbed at his forehead trying to remember. "I can remember talking to Milliardo. I can remember.... a party. Quatre was there... and Trowa. Quatre was wearing this stupid white tux, way over dressed.... Milliardo had a red rose in his uniform lapel. He was making a pass at me... he wanted me to go back to his quarters and have a few drinks. I told him he was a pervert and to find somebody legal. He was pretty smooth though. I was actually getting around to saying yes... his hands were-" Duo blushed and his eyes flicked up at Heero. He finished lamely, afraid that hew as being judged, "Jeez! I was fifteen years old, Heero, and I had a libido like it was powered with jet fuel. I was ready to get laid, especially after Milli kept rubbing me everywhere with those long fingers of his." Duo scowled as his memory turned unpleasant. "Relena, his sister, showed up though and took him off to do something or other... don't remember what. I could tell that she didn't like me. Next thing I know, I'm having charges filed in court and a leg locator jammed under my skin. I think, if I can remember all of that, I should remember owning a gold cross."  
  
Heero didn't address that. He couldn't without more information, but he drew the same conclusion that Duo had long ago. "Your confinement is an act of revenge, then?"  
  
Duo sighed and threw up his hands. "I guess! Who knows?! What's it matter? Maybe I just tell myself that so I can blame someone for this mess instead of me? That's what the psychiatrist keeps telling me anyway."  
  
"I will find out what the truth of the matter is," Heero promised.  
  
Duo glared. "Okay, Detective Yuy, but how are you going to do that when you probably have a limited visa and a job to do? You seem to think that your job is all noble and that you're going to save people's lives. I seem to remember that the old Heero Yuy didn't compromise things like that for individuals."  
  
Heero met his eyes and Duo flinched at the shadow of pain he saw there. Heero replied stiffly, "I will do what I say, Duo. How, is my problem, and not something that I can discuss with you."  
  
Duo rubbed at his eyes again and then waved a hand dismissively, almost rudely at Heero as he trudged towards the bedroom. "Yeah, yeah, do what you want if it makes you feel better. I think I'm more savvy to reality."  
  
Duo threw himself onto his bed and hid his eyes behind an arm, trying to gain control of his emotions and thoughts. Hadn't his wildest dreams been answered? Hadn't he wanted Heero to care about him? Hadn't he wanted Heero to be his friend? Duo had wanted him to be more than that, but he couldn't yet make the mental stretch and imagine Heero caring for him that much. The plain truth of the matter was that Duo WAS savvy to reality. He was a prisoner of Earth, chained by drugs and a sentence. He couldn't see Heero, even if all the odds were beaten and the man actually did have a deeper interest in him, making himself a prisoner as well by staying with him.  
  
Reality became too stressful and Duo sought comfort in dreams, letting the drugs lull him and take away all thoughts of resistance and Heero. His attempts to pull forgetfulness over his senses didn't last long though, as a dream caught Duo and held him tight in its grip. It began to play and Duo felt like a helpless spectator, until he was sucked into the scenery and made a part of the action. It was then that Duo realized that the dream had the taste of reality. Images and people shifted and pooled, but the facts pricked at Duo's brain cells and Duo's brain confirmed their validity. Duo was remembering and the memories quickly took on the tone of a nightmare.  
  
"Shit!" Duo sat up and groaned, hands rubbing at his eyes sharply as he tried to wake himself up completely and escape the images that burned his senses; Milliardo and his hands, hot and insistent, a room with red decor, a bed, soft and pliable beneath his back, clothes being undone, white hair sprayed all about him, a needy mouth covering his own, tongues doing battle... and a voice shrieking, bodies being pulled apart, protests on all sides, a fight, punches thrown and taken, wildness, disarray, confusion, and... a cross, a gold cross, being drawn into a big hand and pulled sharply as a fist crashed into flesh and brought darkness.  
  
Duo was shaking. He found himself calling out, needing a lifeline, not caring about pride, only needing reassurance and the strength he knew one man in particular possessed, "H-Heero?!"  
  
The lights were low. Someone, probably Heero, had covered him with a blanket and left a cup of water on a side table as if Duo were a child. Duo felt like one just then, needing reassurance as badly as any child that had been frightened by a nightmare.  
  
"Heero?!" Duo called again and then, still not receiving an answer, he crawled from the bed and went looking for the ex-Gundam pilot. On the small coffee table in the living room, Duo found a note propped up on the remote. In Heero's precise, block lettering, it read, 'Business. Unable to specify return time.'  
  
Duo crumpled up the note. He was unjustifiably angry and he didn't care. He had needed Heero and Heero hadn't been there for him. The how, the why, or even the unreasonableness of Duo's judgment didn't concern him. He was depressed and disappointed. He was alone and on his own just as if Heero had never appeared.  
  
"It's your fault that I had the nightmare," Duo growled at the crumpled note and then turned on his heel and stalked into the bedroom again. He needed to get out, he thought. He had stayed in the apartment, not needing the cacophony of city life to drown out his loneliness and despair while Heero was there and being a distraction. Now that Heero was gone, Duo found that he needed that chaos, that pulsing beat, of the city again. He needed something to drown out his pain. He was going out.  
  
Dance club, Duo thought with a hard smile, and put aside his darker clothes for a white pair of jeans, a white tank top, red boots, and a knee length red coat with a black velvet collar. Slipping on black gloves, Duo stood in front of the hated mirror as he brushed out his long hair. He glared at his reflection, trying to convince himself that the young man who stood there could turn a few heads in such an outfit, that his long, chestnut hair was purely amazing, and that anyone would be glad to be with him. It was a mantra that he repeated to himself silently as his fingers flew, weaving his hair into a long braid and tying it off with a snap of elastic at the end and a black velvet bow.  
  
It was almost like preparing for a mission, Duo thought, rather than a spontaneous action. He felt the same adrenalin rush, the same nervousness, the same need to plan and organize. He found himself running over in his head likely scenarios that might occur that night, and his responses to each one, as he left his apartment and made his way down to the city street.  
  
No Heero. No constant feeling of being analyzed. Duo should have felt relieved, even liberated, but he found himself missing Heero instead, his thoughts returning again and again to that grim man. Anger was leaving Duo, reason returning in its place. Duo felt ashamed now for having blamed Heero for telling him the truth, something he had already known, and for bringing on a nightmare, one of a number that Duo had been used to suffering anyway. Heero had said that he wanted to help Duo. Heero cared about him. As much as Duo was finding that hard to believe, the man deserved more from him than a foul mouth, senseless anger, and baseless accusations.  
  
"Duo!" A female voice screamed. Duo looked up in time to not smother against the breasts of a larger woman as she hugged him and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Tall, and dressed all in black club clothes, the woman had purple hair cut close and a broad, flat face with lively black eyes. Her silent companion, a muscular man in a loose shirt unbuttoned to his navel, overlarge pants, combat boots, tattoos everywhere, a shock of white hair, and a hatchet face with a sneering smile, gave Duo a wink as he rocked on his heels with his hands stuffed into his pockets. "'Lo, Duo," was all he said.  
  
"Going dancing?" the woman wondered. When Duo nodded, he winced as she squealed in delight, "Good! Come to club Zeo with us. We'll hook up with Kaeko and Janine!"  
  
"Kay," Duo replied, carefully disengaging himself from the woman and straightening his coat. "Sounds like a plan."  
  
They began walking, in a close knot, along the street, heading towards the blinking lights of the club up ahead. People swirled about them, gave them a wide berth, and exclaimed to themselves as they recognized Duo. The woman preened and grinned. The white haired man grinned back. They loved the notoriety of being with Duo. It was why they stayed with him, followed him everywhere, and played the game of being his friends. Duo bought the drinks for them and gained them entrance to every night club and restaurant by using his reputation as a passport. He was famous and they basked in his glow, even though it was a sick glow, even though the notoriety was mostly negative. They, and a few others, were the only friends that Duo had. The rest, true friends, had been unable to cope, unable to stand in the fish bowl with him and take the constant barrage of false stories and false speculation.  
  
"What'chya been doing?" The woman asked Duo, breaking into his sour thoughts. "We all missed you."  
  
Sure, Duo thought, growing even more bitter, you missed the false Duo, the one the media and the government had created, not the real Duo, who, if he had not been haunted by his depression and despair, would have been at home, a happy recluse sipping coffee while Heero grunted one word replies to his conversation. That Duo, they would have been horrified by. That Duo, the skinny, underdeveloped, war hero, wouldn't have rated their acknowledgement of his existence.  
  
"Busy," Duo replied shortly. Both man and woman looked at him. He was usually the chatter box, the grinning fool who tried to dance with everyone despite the gravity making his steps awkward. He was the one who paid for everything, drank too much, and sang off key to crappy music. Duo expected his near silence to puzzle them, but he wasn't ready for an edge of fear in their expressions. Fear? They were afraid of him?  
  
Duo felt suddenly ill. He wanted to turn around and retrace his steps, wait for Heero to come back to the apartment, and enjoy his honest, plain presence. Heero wasn't afraid of him. Heero wasn't a leach, attaching himself and hoping to suck off of his ill fame. Duo felt almost angry again, realizing that Heero had hurt him by his very presence, by highlighting just how pathetic his, Duo's life, had become. Without a friend in the world, he had created a delusion as sure as the one about the drugs not controlling or effecting him; a comfortable lie to hide what was, in reality, a void in his life as deep and as dark as space. He was alone. The people with him were not his friends. He doubted that they even liked him.  
  
They reached the club. The line was long, everyone talking excitedly in groups, everyone dressed like wild peacocks as they tried to look worthy of access to the exclusive club. Duo bypassed the line and went straight to the bouncer at the entrance. He stood expectantly. The man looked down his great height and, instead of letting Duo proceed with his usual greeting, he barred Duo's path.  
  
"Not tonight," the man said in a gravely voice that hinted at a warning. "News is too fresh. People will come to take a look at you, but others won't stick around, not after you beat up that guy and threatened his girl."  
  
Duo narrowed his amethyst eyes. "You know that didn't happen."  
  
The man shrugged, a rising and falling of broad shoulders. "They think it did."  
  
The woman tugged Duo away, angry and disappointed. "Well go to another club, Duo, right?"  
  
Duo had found his excuse. He took it and shook his head. "'fraid not," he replied. "They'll all be nervous. I guess I'll lay low for a week. Don't worry, we'll hit the town after that."  
  
They tried to argue, tried to suggest wilder alternatives, but Duo was firm, almost rude as he turned them down. Finally, it took him walking away with a growled dismissal that finally made them cease and desist. He saw the fear in their faces again and hated himself. He hated them almost as much when they stayed and were let into the club, using his reputation to accomplish it.  
  
"Nice night for walking, but not for being alone," a voice said at Duo's elbow. Duo twitched sideways and faced the man defensively.  
  
Broad, dark skin, black hair. He had a look that reminded Duo of Heero, slightly flat, thoughts well hidden, but a sparkle in the man's green eyes that betrayed him. That's where the similarity to Heero ended. Where the glitter in Heero's eyes was concern and something else, something that Duo knew would reveal itself in time to be positive for him, this man's eyes held the promise of harm and darker things, things that Duo didn't want to know anything about.  
  
"I don't want company, sorry," Duo said firmly and began walking away. The man matched his steps. Duo stopped and faced him again, putting a hand into his pocket as if he had a weapon and was willing to use it. He wished, just then, that he did, uncertain of his martial arts training. He hadn't had to use it since the war, his reputation enough to keep people from challenging him, and his exercises had been less than stellar, even with Heero helping him.  
  
"I saw them turn you away from the club," the man said, voice smooth and cultured, yet eager, too eager, his smile pasted on and very wide and wolfish. "You wanted a good time. I can get you in a few places or, if you like, we can go back to my home. I have some good entertainment there... drugs, liqueur...," He reached out and caressed Duo's cheek, warm skin against Duo's quickly chilling skin. Duo shivered as the man finished meaningfully, "or we could do with each other and think of some more, personal entertainment."  
  
"Contrary to everyone's opinion," Duo found himself snapping back, "I'm not a weirdo or a whore! Get your freakin' hand off me and get lost!"  
  
The man's hand tightened on Duo's cheek instead, painfully. Fingers flicked and Duo felt something sharp rest against the side of his face. That sharpness trailed down, following the path of the man's hand down Duo's neck. Fingers dug into Duo's collar, gripping it tightly, and the spike pierced the material and rested against Duo's flesh as the man said very dangerously, "Don't move. I have a shock needle."  
  
Duo's blood turned to ice, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, as he kept perfectly still. Illegal on Earth and In Space, shock needles were home made weapons, a lethal charge of pinpointed energy, that, once inserted into a victim's nerves, set off a mind destroying chain reaction that killed slowly and painfully. Sometimes, a person didn't die. Sometimes, they spent their lives comatose.  
  
"You will do exactly what I say," the man said with a grin. "Be good and I may be nice and let you go after I'm done with you." Duo didn't ask what the man wanted him to do. He knew. He had lived on the streets of L2. He wasn't naive. Only, this time, he didn't have a friend named Solo to protect him.  
  
"You think you're so high and mighty," the man said in disgust. "I've been watching you, those sick little bitches hanging on you, hanging on your every word, the way everyone lets you pass, the way everyone looks at you in awe. You need a dose of reality. You need someone to show you just what and who you really are. I'm going to be the man to do that. I'm going to show you that you're not better than everyone else and that you're certainly not better than me!"  
  
"I'm not better than you or anyone else," Duo replied softly.   
  
"Shut up!" The man snarled back.  
  
"I'm a prisoner," Duo persisted. "People are afraid of me. They watch me every time I show my face, but then they make up my life as they go along and the life they've made up has no relation to reality."  
  
"Deep!" The man grunted and pressed the needle into flesh. "Don't say another word. We're going to go to that fancy high rise of yours so that I can play with your toys and you," he said, his grin reappearing in anticipation. "Like I said, play along and you'll only end up with a sore ass and a well deserved beating. Make trouble, and I'll turn this needle on low and let you stare at the ceiling for the rest of your life. Got it?"  
  
Duo nodded, shivering, knowing that he didn't have a choice. He couldn't defend himself and he couldn't call attention to his danger. There wasn't any way that help could arrive before the man turned that needle on. And the man would use it, Duo thought, frightened to his core, he could smell the madness, sense it in the way the man moved; the madness of a killer.  
  
Duo led the way back to his apartment, passed the security guards, and acknowledged their bored greetings. He knew they stared with interest after he passed and made phone calls, eager to report that bizarre Duo Maxwell was taking yet another stranger up to his apartment. By morning, a dozen stories would be running through the papers and on everyone's lips on the street.  
  
"Nice," The man said in his ear. "I'll be famous, just like you. Make sure you tell them Dan Mickel plowed you and took you down a few pegs, okay?" He thought and then added, "If you're still alive, that is."  
  
Would Heero be at the apartment? Duo wondered. Should he hope that he was? Duo's mind went in circles, knowing that, if anyone could take out the man it would be Heero, yet also realizing that Heero wasn't super human. He couldn't attack fast enough to stop that needle from setting off its charge. If Heero did attack, if Heero didn't realize what weapon the man was using... Duo felt tears sting his eyes, imaging life as a vegetable. Would he know? Would he be locked in his body, aware and unable to do anything at all?  
  
They reached his apartment door. Duo fumbled with the locks. The man slammed his head against the wood. Duo gasped and saw stars. "Just a taste," the man chuckled. "Hurry up."  
  
With pain radiating throughout his skull, Duo still managed to get the locks undone. Opening the door, he staggered, but the man wasn't letting him get away. He kept a tight hold and jerked Duo back against him as he looked around. He was disappointed.  
  
"This isn't your main apartment!" he accused. "You've got nothing here! You're going to pay for that, little bitch!"  
  
"This is where I live," Duo insisted. "I don't have another place. If you heard differently, it was just a story like all the rest."  
  
The man sneered, "I can't believe that you would fucking play games with me like this just to save some of your stuff! Don't you get that I am seriously going to mess you up and that the more you jerk me around, the worse it's going to be?"  
  
There was nothing to say. The man was crazy. Duo knew that he couldn't reason with him. As the man dragged him into the bedroom, and he didn't see any signs of Heero, Duo decided that he was glad. He didn't want to be comatose. He also didn't want to be hurt badly. His decision now was a cowardly one. He didn't want Heero there to witness it. He wished that he didn't have to witness it himself.  
  
Duo took a shuddering breath and then forced himself to turn and say, "I'll do what you want, okay? You can call me every name in the book, if it will make you feel better, but... don't break me and... don't use the needle."  
  
The man looked at him, stunned, and then Duo realized that he was mocking him. Viciously, the man ripped off Duo's jacket, popped the buttons on his shirt, ripped his shirt open down to his navel, and then smashed Duo up against the full length mirror against the wall.  
  
Leaning in close and shouting into Duo's ear in fury, the man said, "You think you actually have something that I want?! Look at you!" He slammed Duo against the mirror and it shivered with the force, but didn't break. "Look!" he commanded and pulled Duo back so that he could see his own reflection. "Skinny, boney, fish- skinned boy-cunt! I've seen ten year olds that are bigger and more manly than you! Fucking you is going to be like fucking a stick! You think I'm going to enjoy it?! You think I'm actually looking forward to it?" The man laughed. "Maybe you're the one who should lay back and enjoy it. Who else is going to want you, hm? Who would want somebody who looks like you?"  
  
Duo felt the tears start. He tried to choke them back. He was a Gundam pilot and a war hero for Christ's sake! He had withstood Oz torture without breaking. Why couldn't he be that strong now? Why couldn't he spit in the man's face and tell him to go to Hell? Why? Because he believed every word the man was saying.  
  
There was suddenly a sickening crack. Duo focused on the mirror and saw his attacker's eyes behind him go wide in surprise right before they glazed over. Heero was standing behind him, one hand on his neck and the other on the hand that held the needle. That hand was as crushed as the man's spine.  
  
Heero let the body drop and then he met eyes with the reflection of Duo's eyes. Duo didn't move, still too stunned by the suddenness of it. When Heero stepped over the twitching body, reached past Duo to the mirror, and covered the reflection with his hand, Duo stared at the broad back of it as Heero said very intensely, "A mirror shows only what you want to see."  
  
Duo swallowed convulsively and his tears tracked down his cheeks. "I know what I see. I know what that asshole saw," he replied in voice hoarse with growing shock. "What do you see?"  
  
Heero's fist suddenly smashed the mirror. Duo turned to look at him then, confused and wondering if he should be afraid of Heero now, but Heero said with more emotion than Duo had ever heard from him before, "I don't need a mirror to show me how beautiful you are, inside and out. What that man said was a lie."  
  
Duo's mouth opened, his shock complete. He looked down at the body of his attacker, growing quickly cold, and then he looked back up at Heero and the promise in the man's eyes beginning to be revealed for what it was. "I think... I think I'd rather believe you, Heero, than someone like him."  
  
Heero nodded as he reached out and took Duo's hand. Gently, he led Duo away from violence and death, saying, "Good, because you will need to believe in me when I take you away from this world."


	6. Flying

Duo was very quiet. He could feel Heero look at him repeatedly, patient, not willing to pressure Duo with questions when he was so obviously still in shock. Duo was grateful, but it didn't make him any more comfortable with the situation or less strung out by the rapid events earlier.  
  
Heero had disposed of the body. How, Duo didn't know. The man had simply carried it out of the apartment without the slightest hesitation, unafraid of someone seeing him, and returned empty handed with a reassurance that no one would find it for a long while and, when they did, it was going to be hard to identify what would be left of the body or connect it to Duo in any way.  
  
Duo had only nodded. A war veteran, and witness to horrible military crimes when he was very young, death didn't bother him on a conscious level any longer, especially not the death of a man like that. It wasn't that death that kept Duo silent and shaking imperceptibly. It wasn't that kind of violence that had made him pack clothes, his pills, and what few personal items he had, and want to leave his apartment as quickly as possible. It was more the realization that he had almost come to an end too, an end far worse than Dan Mickel's and that, before Heero had rescued him, Duo had been about to do a very cowardly thing.  
  
"I-I have to call the government offices and report my position," Duo said finally, in a very quiet voice. He stared out at the clouds through a window as the small luxury jet arrowed through the skies towards an unknown destination. Heero had made the arrangements for the jet with practiced ease, no one questioning him, the two man crew respectful and obedient when he and Duo had appeared on the tarmac of the airport.  
  
"Why?" Heero wondered just as quietly. "I read the orders that said that you were allowed to travel on Earth where you wished."  
  
"I've never done it, though, " Duo replied, picking up his braid and fiddling with the end. The black, velvet bow was still there. He pulled it out and let it drop onto the plush, empty seat next to him. "They'll be nervous. Someone's probably going to be waiting when we land."  
  
"Then you don't need to call," Heero told him logically. "You can explain, personally, that you will be Quatre Winner's guest at his estate."  
  
Duo looked at Heero then, surprised. "Quatre?"  
  
"He's expecting us," Heero informed him. There were several spaces between them. Heero closed the distance and settled next to Duo, eyes deep cobalt wells that belied his blank expression and his matter- of -fact, business like voice. Duo saw concern in those eyes and questions unasked.  
  
"We didn't exactly part on the best of terms," Duo explained, swallowing nervously, feeling his trembling grow stronger. He was reacting to Heero's warmth. Duo felt cold, drained, and needy. He wanted, more than anything else, to reach out to Heero's warmth and pull it and Heero closer. He refrained, wrapping his arms about himself, telling himself that Heero was still an unknown, still a mystery. He had said words that had sounded like an admission, but Duo wasn't ready to believe yet, still too raw from having Dan Mickel paw him and still too afraid that Heero had witnessed his moment of complete cowardice. Duo was too afraid to see disgust behind Heero's concern, too afraid that he was misreading the situation and that Heero would reject him. It was much better to protect his spark of hope for now and avoid-  
  
"You are not a coward," Heero said so abruptly and strongly that Duo flinched.  
  
"I didn't know that you could read minds," Duo hissed, making a lame attempt to escape in humor and turn away from the topic as he turned his body away from Heero, a clear signal to the man that he didn't want to talk about it.  
  
Heero gripped Duo's thin arm hard and turned him back to face him, making him listen, "If that man had told you that, after he had finished with you, he was going to kill someone else, would you have made that offer to him? Would you have tried to save your own life, let him have sex with you, hoping that he would let you go unharmed?"  
  
"No, of course not!" Duo replied instantly, outraged by the very idea.  
  
Heero nodded firmly, once, and then let Duo go as he stood up, saying, "What other point has to be made, Duo? None of us wants to die. If no one else will die, then what is wrong with deciding to suffer through an ordeal to live?"  
  
Duo watched Heero open a small refrigerator under a tiny wet bar. He began taking out ice cubes and wrapping them in a towel. "I don't know how you made that seem logical, but you did," Duo replied. He thought about it. "I guess, I felt that I was being... dishonorable, by letting him- offering him what he wanted. Does that make sense?" he sighed darkly, "or maybe I'm just having a battle with my pride?"  
  
Heero turned to him, offering the ice. "I don't doubt your honor, Duo, but I think it's more a case of the latter. Nobody wishes to concede to an enemy. Remember, though, that when we leave the field alive, we can always return to fight and win another day."  
  
Duo nodded as he took the ice and cradled it uncertainty in his hands. "That sounds nice, but I still feel less of a man, somehow, and I didn't think I was much of one before that." He looked at the ice. "What am I doing with this?"  
  
"You have a large bump on your face and a bruise along your cheek," Heero told him. "The ice will reduce the swelling and the pain."  
  
"Ah, Thanks," Duo replied with a blush and put the ice to his wounds, wondering at Heero's manner towards him. He still seemed, physically, to be the Heero he had always known, cold, aloof, reserved, and a hundred other words that describe stoic, perfect soldier, but his actions were anything but cold or detached. Duo asked, feeling as if it were a bomb he was playing with, "Where you always this way and I just never noticed?"  
  
Heero raised an eyebrow and Duo caught a brief, self satisfied smirk on his face. That could have meant something unpleasant, but Duo could sense that it was plain amusement. "You made the observation that I didn't know you," Heero replied. "So, too, you don't know me, Duo. We didn't have many missions together and even then we were mostly in our Gundams."  
  
"You didn't seem to like me," Duo dared. "That's why I was so surprised, why I'm still surprised that you're being so..." Duo still didn't want to go there. He still didn't want to chance rejection. He finished lamely, "friendly and concerned about me."  
  
Heero's eyes went half closed as if falling into memory, some of it unpleasant. "There wasn't much time, during the war, for caring about anything except freeing the colonies. I had to concentrate on the missions. I had to win the war. Afterwards, I had to find my place. I had to find where a man, who had always known killing and fighting, could fit into a world where there was peace. I decided to keep on fighting, to keep the peace. I stayed in the Preventers after the uprising."  
  
Duo blinked. "I thought that they had disbanded after the rebellion. Didn't the government think that they were too violent a force to keep active? I remember hearing arguments that any armed, standing force could be taken over and used for another rebellion."  
  
"There is always a need for a police force and a police force has to be armed," Heero replied, "But the members of that police force can be chosen carefully and screened diligently to keep out radical elements."  
  
Duo found the illogic in that quickly enough. "Then why me?" he wondered bitterly. "You've seen at least part of the judgment against me. It doesn't make any sense that you would even consider me."  
  
Heero looked down at his hands and his jaw tightened. For a moment, Duo didn't think he would reply and then he said, "After the war, after I joined the Preventers, I suddenly had time on my hands, time to build a life that didn't always include killing and missions. Most of our work is with petty disputes, petty criminals, and simple assignments policing government functions. That leaves a man a lot of time to think."  
  
"Think?" Duo echoed, wanting Heero to continue, but not daring to ask the questions poised on his lips.  
  
"I thought a lot about you," Heero replied and then stood up, letting his hands drop at his side as he paced to the opposite side of the small plane. Leaning against a wall, he looked out of a window at the clouds. "I read news stories about you, saw vid clips, looked into your files, wondering why-"  
  
"Hm, well, I don't blame you for believing all of that shit," Duo sighed, cutting Heero off. "Everyone else does."  
  
"I didn't believe it," Heero replied. "Not for an instant. That's why I needed information. I needed to understand why so many people would lie about you."  
  
"The madness of crowds," Duo murmured.  
  
"What?" Heero wondered, puzzled.  
  
"Come on, Heero!" Duo exclaimed with a dark chuckle. "You're a soldier! Surely you've heard that phrase? People will often do something that they otherwise wouldn't, and know is wrong, if enough people are doing the same thing. Sometimes, all people are looking for is some legitimacy to do evil. Those people know, deep down, that I didn't do those things, but they still enjoy hearing about them and believing that I did, so they feed the fantasy engine by paying for the vid, paying for the news article, paying to show up to gawk at the perverted, dangerous war hero." Duo went even paler than his usual, remembering other, darker, things, how, in the war, a crowd would egg each other on to kick a fallen soldier to death, torture a prisoner in horrific ways, destroy towns, and slaughter people wholesale. Looking at Heero's drawn brows and tightening jaw, Duo knew that Heero was thinking of those things as well.  
  
Duo broke through the memories by pointing out, "That's all very lovely, you thinking about me and all, Heero, but that doesn't explain why your bosses wanted anything to do with me. Maybe you didn't believe it, but I'm sure they probably did."  
  
Heero shrugged. "They trust my judgment."  
  
"THAT much?" Duo was incredulous. "Not with people's lives and the peace at stake, Yuy! Don't lie to me!"  
  
Heero spun on him and Duo sank back into the cushion of the seat, wondering if he had been stupid enough to over step some boundary with Heero. Heero looked angry for only an instant and then he recovered and said, "I'm sorry," in a voice that was tightly controlled. "It's still classified why you were chosen. I can't reveal it. I was trying to explain why you came to my attention at all, why I submitted your name to the Preventers. The details, the criteria I was hoping that you would qualify for, I can't discuss."  
  
Duo felt weary and he let it go. Putting the towel with the melting ice cubes aside, he shivered and stretched out across the seats, trying to make himself comfortable. "Okay, Heero," he said around a yawn, "You keep your secrets like everyone else who runs my life. It shouldn't matter to me anymore. I should just shut up and do what I'm told. " He pillowed his bruised cheek on his arm and closed his eyes as he finished, "I was almost raped and messed up, I'm doped up on my 'fix' like a good, little drug addict, and I just spent way too long just now trying to play, 'guess what Heero's thinking', so, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to sleep."  
  
There was a definite silence and then Duo heard Heero moving around the cabin. Duo twitched, but didn't open his eyes when he felt a thick, warm blanket placed over his body. A hand that had killed innumerable men in battle and assassinations, piloted a Gundam in the war, and crushed men's spines, moved Duo's braid to where it wouldn't get tangled or caught underneath Duo and then, as lightly as the brush of a feather, as if he hoped Duo wouldn't notice, that hand gave Duo's braid the smallest of caresses before retreating.  
  
Duo felt his face go red, but he kept his eyes tightly shut, hoping for more, mind doing battle with his low self esteem as he tried to convince himself that this was proof positive that Heero Yuy was attempting to be more than a friend. He fought sleep, wanting more than anything else to truly believe in that conclusion, but, he was too exhausted and still in slight shock. Sleep claimed him long before he could convince his mind to stop running from the obvious.  
  
+  
  
Duo awoke alone hours later. He sat up, mouth dry, body stiff, and bruises throbbing. He could tell that the plane had landed. Blinking through a window at a tarmac bathed in early morning light, Duo estimated that they must have flown half way around the world. There were snow capped mountain peaks in the distance. Duo felt a distinct pressure in his head from a rise in elevation, and the air had grown sharply colder. The Alps?  
  
Gripping his rumpled, red coat closely around him to keep his thin body warm, Duo picked up his heavy bag from underneath the seats and made his way out of the cabin and to the cockpit. Heero was there, speaking with the pilots and giving them an order to service the jet and to keep a jump plane fueled and ready to go at a moment's notice. Duo shivered even more when he heard that. A jump plane was used to leave Earth's atmosphere and to dock with space ships.  
  
"The Preventers must be flush with money to have a private jump plane," Duo said.  
  
Heero turned and Duo saw Heero's quick appraisal of his condition. The way his face went even more grim told Duo that he looked as bad as he felt. "It's Quatre's." Heero replied and Duo was surprised and confused at the level of Quatre's involvement.  
  
"I'd ask what Quatre has to do with all of this, but I expect it's classified too," Duo said in exasperation.   
  
"For now," Heero replied. "Until we can get you away from the government and the doctors. I'm not certain what level of control they have over you. If I tell you anything, they may be able to retrieve that information without your being aware of it."  
  
"You're more of an optimist than I am, Heero," Duo said dejectedly. "I've been a prisoner too long, I guess. I don't really think that you'll be able to get me off planet, even with the help of someone like Quatre."  
  
"The plan is still being drawn," Heero conceded, "There are still too many variables and too many unknowns. For now, you will have to continue as you have with the pills and the treatment, until Quatre, my associates, and I can find out more."  
  
Duo rubbed at his aching forehead as he followed Heero towards the ladder leading out of the plane. "Maybe I WAS being an optimist," he sighed. "Somehow, I was thinking that you had already helped me to escape."  
  
Heero stopped at the top of the ladder. He didn't turn, but he was a solid, comforting presence as Duo accidentally bumped into his broad back. Heero said over his shoulder, "If normal channels are ineffective, Duo, I will take you off planet by any means necessary. Don't doubt that."  
  
"Sorry, but it's hard not to," Duo said as he caught a glimpse past Heero at the armed men waiting for them. "Especially when I'm surrounded by guys like that."  
  
"Captain Duo Maxwell?" a tall, hard faced man stepped forward, saluted Duo smartly, and then eyed Heero suspiciously as he said to Duo, "Proceed this way for questioning, sir."  
  
"He's my bodyguard," Duo protested, still standing somewhat behind Heero. "He comes too."  
  
"I'm afraid not, sir," the man replied and became nervous. That wasn't good in a man who was armed and had an armed detail under his command. Duo knew that a bad situation was about to start.  
  
"All right," Duo conceded and, looking at Heero, he said, "See you in a bit." He wasn't sure if that was true or not, but it sounded good to himself. Heero simply nodded, appraising the men, but he stepped aside and allowed Duo to join them.  
  
Duo was led to a bare room in the airport proper. All of the guard detail followed as if they were terrified that Duo would do something incredibly violent. They all kept their hands on their weapons. The tense situation hadn't ended with Duo's cooperation. There was still a chance that a hair trigger individual could start shooting.  
  
Duo kept his stance relaxed as he stood and let them search him. With the expertness he had learned as a thief on L2, Duo slipped several things that he had wanted to keep secret into the pockets of the guard while they milled and tangled with each other.  
  
"Hey!" Duo complained with a wince as a man ran a rough hand between his legs as he was frisked. "Those are not weapons and they are very sensitive!" That made a few men chuckle. That told Duo that they weren't bad men, just frightened by his reputation. Duo was able to truly relax then and even managed to crack a few more jokes during an intense round of questioning.  
  
Satisfied, the leader had Duo sign a stack of forms and then gave him orders in a brisk, 'you had better comply, or else' tone. "Report to this physician and this hospital at this specified time. Report to this psychiatrist at this specified time." His thick finger ran down a paper that he held in his hands before Duo's face. Duo didn't focus on it, just nodded with a tight mouth. "You were to report your movements to the correct authorities, Captain Maxwell," the man finished as he lowered the paper and put it on top of the stack that Duo already held in his hands. "You will do so in the future, is that understood?"  
  
"Yes, sir," Duo replied as he felt his stomach tighten on bitterness. When he had confined himself to one city and his apartment, it had been his choice, not a government order. It drove home to Duo that he was a prisoner. He wasn't in a cell, but he might as well have been.  
  
"You may go now, Captain. Welcome to our country," that was said in a tone that told Duo that he wasn't welcome at all.  
  
"Thanks," Duo replied automatically. He was handed his bag. Someone had checked to make sure that he was carrying his pills.  
  
Slinging the bag and it's precious burden over one shoulder, Duo retrieved his things from his 'plants', including the small, laminated news clipping of Heero and himself that some reporter had snapped at the celebration party after the war's end. They were both uncomfortable in tux's and Heero was looking away from the camera with an intense scowl, but Duo was smiling and flashing a peace sign. Duo had often looked at it, wondering about Heero, and it had been one of the few things he had taken from the apartment. He had hidden it from the men, because he had been nervous about them knowing that he cared that much about Heero. If things had gotten ugly, being unconnected to him might have allowed Heero to escape unharmed.  
  
Duo found Heero, holding his own meager luggage, outside the terminal. Heero looked him over with a stiff, anxious air. "They treated you well?"  
  
Duo shrugged and managed a smile as Heero hailed a cab. "Soldiers are soldiers."  
  
That didn't comfort Heero. As a cab pulled up and they slid inside, Heero said, "We will be safe from that sort of interference at Quatre's estate."  
  
"You sound pretty sure of that," Duo chuckled as he leaned back into the car seat and closed his eyes against a bright sun coming through the window.  
  
"I am," Heero replied.  
  
+  
  
They didn't say much to each other as the car wound through mountain roads. Duo watched the scenery go by between naps. They were definitely in the Alps. Everything seemed cleaner and fresher, more green, more crisp, than anywhere else. Even the cows in their pastures seemed to be smiling contentedly. It was relaxing and Duo found himself glad that he had made the trip, even if nothing came of it. He had been holed up, a recluse in one place, too long. He had always been an adventurer, looking towards the horizon and then going there. Now he was feeling as if he had been moth balled like an old ship and was now being put back into commission. He found himself looking towards the horizon again and feeling the excitement of wanting to know what was beyond it.  
  
What was beyond that horizon was a very large, almost castle like estate set on the jagged bones of an old, snow covered mountain. Duo couldn't help a low whistle of appreciation. Money was a part of the Winner name and heritage. It was obvious that, for Quatre, this was still true.  
  
"Nice," was all Duo could find to say as they left the cab and went up to the grand entrance of the main building. People were there already, official looking, armed guards in desert uniforms. "Maganacs," Duo said in surprise and Heero nodded. "No wonder you're so sure we won't be bothered. Quatre still has his army."  
  
"Honor guard," Heero corrected. "They are restricted severely, only so many in one area and only certain weapons. Still..., " Heero gave a hard smile, "They can be very effective deterrents."  
  
"I bet," Duo replied with a return smile.  
  
Duo, eyes watering from the bright sun, was glad to duck inside and escape it. The rich decor he was greeted with made him stop and stare. Everything seemed to be gold and marble, dazzling to someone who had spent his youth in abandoned buildings, a rundown church, and then on decrepit sweeper ships. Duo had flirted with high society while he had been basking in the brief glow of being a war hero, but that lifestyle hadn't had time to sink in and become common place for him. He could still be awed, and stunned, by opulence and he couldn't help feeling very out of place and out classed.  
  
"Duo! Heero!" The voice confused Duo at first. It was deeper than he remembered Quatre's voice being. The man who greeted him was different as well.  
  
Quatre Winner had left the soft, boyish look of youth behind. He was tall and slim, but it looked as if he had put himself through intensive weight training. His muscles were all defined and his shoulders were broad for someone so slim. His features were finely chiseled now, his cheeks having become more prominent and his chin squarer after shedding their baby fat of youth. Dressed in a casual shirt that was tight on his upper body and a pair of comfortable pants, he still managed to have a refined air and a polite manner about him that was usually the hallmark of aristocracy.  
  
Quatre's eyes were the same though and they were warm and caring as he approached them with arms held wide. He hugged them, Heero stiff and unresponsive, but Duo giving an eager hug back in return as he ignored that little voice inside of him that sneered at his need for Quatre's friendly contact.  
  
Quatre felt Duo's bones, and his slight shivering, and he backed away in surprise, looking hard at his old war comrade. Duo saw his kindly face become shocked. "Duo!" Quatre exclaimed in concern, but then he recovered before he said something unfortunate and changed what he had been about to say to something more tactful. "Well!" he said with forced good humor. "Y-You haven't changed a bit!"  
  
Duo went bitter. "Yeah, well, that would be good to hear if I was fifty years old, but now, it sucks."  
  
Quatre winced.  
  
Duo quickly made amends. "Sorry, Quat, it's just a sore point with me, okay?"  
  
"That's all right, Duo," Quatre replied gently and then turned his attention to Heero, still as much of a soldier as either of them and needing a status report. "You didn't tell me much of what was going on when you called, Heero, except to be ready for trouble. What's the status now?"  
  
Heero began telling Quatre about Duo's situation. Duo found himself on the outside of the conversation as if he were in another room entirely and, disgruntled by it, he wandered a few steps and tried to get his bearings, taking in the decor and making a visual map automatically. He wasn't long into that task before Duo felt his inner clock reach a certain time and begin to set off an internal alarm. It was time to take his pills.  
  
Quatre and Heero's voices had dropped and they had stepped closer together. Heero was intense and Quatre was concerned. Let them talk, Duo said to himself, they'll be done shortly. He didn't want to take the pills where Quatre or Heero could see him. He felt on edge about that. It was a weakness, having to take the pills. After the incident with Dan Mickel, Duo felt the need to reassert at least a semblance of control and confidence to these people who's opinion he valued. He wanted their respect. He wasn't going to get it, if he started crying about his pills like a damned drug addict. And so, Duo waited and listened to them talk, ignoring the alarm.  
  
It took concentration. Duo counted, sang a song silently to himself that he only half remembered, trying to recall the lyrics, and mentally tried to analyze the material that made up the floor when he finally dismissed it as being white marble. While he tried to distract himself from the growing agitation within him and the insistent, mental command to take his pills, Quatre and Heero began to argue heatedly.  
  
"How much of this did you research before you decided to interfere?" Quatre demanded in a hissed whisper that still managed to carry to Duo. "You've been in space and insulated from Earth news by your own admission. You didn't see what I saw at the party that Duo attended. He was violent, out of control. I've heard that he was speaking with a known dissident before that. There are valid charges leveled against him, Heero. If I didn't know you better, I might think that you were letting emotions cloud your judgment, but, I do know you and I do know that you must have some sort of agenda in all of this, some agenda that requires Duo. If that is so, then I can't condone it. Despite what you say, I think Duo does need treatment. I think his violence at the party was symptomatic of something we've all suffered, post war syndrome, but, unlike the rest of us, Duo was unable to control himself and resorted to violence.  
  
"What was a known dissident doing at your party, Quatre?" Heero wondered coldly.   
  
"That fact wasn't known at the time," Quatre replied defensively. "After Duo's episode all security tapes of the party were analyzed. That man wasn't invited, Heero, and the tapes showed that he went straight to Duo, speaking to him and no one else."  
  
"I'm tired," Duo managed to break in at last and felt himself beginning to fall apart. He needed a room where he could be alone and take his pills. The command in his head was growing, the need for the drugs beginning to burn and sizzle along his veins. He had fought that command before, fought the need, and had failed every time. He was failing this time too.  
  
Quatre sighed. "All right, Duo. I'm sorry that I tried to discuss such heavy matters in the foyer of my home, instead of being a proper host and letting you rest first, but you can understand my concern for my people here. I don't want Earth security coming down on me unexpectedly."  
  
"S'okay," Duo said shortly and then hated himself as his voice trembled along with his body as he said, "Can I get a room now?"  
  
"Yes, of course," Quatre replied and called for a servant. When a man appeared, he motioned to Heero and Duo. "These are my guests. They are to be given everything they desire. Please take their bags and see them to the guest rooms."  
  
The servant, a burly looking man who looked more like a soldier, bowed to Quatre and replied simply, "Sir," in acknowledgement before turning and reaching for Duo's bag. "Allow me."  
  
What happened next was a confused jumble of motion, shouting, and anxiety. Duo reacted violently, perceiving a threat to his pills, and tried to save them. The servant went flying from a well placed kick, but then Duo was down and Heero was scrambling to hold onto his slight form as Duo kicked, bucked, and squirmed, screaming curses and threats at all of them.  
  
"Heero!" Quatre's voice shouted commandingly. "Let go of him and back off. He's panicking!"  
  
Heero obeyed. During the war, he had given over command to Quatre, telling Quatre that he was best suited for it. Quatre had the best combination of emotion, tactical sense, and an unerring gift for 'seeing around corners' and confusion. He struck to the heart of a matter and solved it. Things weren't any different now. Heero had reacted to a threat and had tried to subdue it. Quatre was able to react another way and offer the correct solution. Heero saw the sense of it and obeyed, letting Duo go abruptly and moving back warily.  
  
Now that he had a clear space and the threat was gone, Duo went into a semi trance. He couldn't ignore the need anymore, even in that situation. He had to have his pills. On the floor of Quatre's foyer, Duo took out his pills and lined them up. Opening each one, he meticulously took out a pill and lined them up in front of their corresponding bottle.  
  
"Water," Quatre ordered the recovering servant. The man, rubbing at a sore stomach where Duo had kicked him, limped into another room and then came back with a glass of chilled water. Handing it to Heero, he and Quatre watched nervously as Heero carefully put the water within Duo's reach. Duo took it without a twitch of acknowledgement and added it to his ritual. They watched him take each pill and swallow it down with a sip of water each time. That completed, Duo then carefully returned the pills to his bag and zipped it up.  
  
Duo sighed and his body relaxed. He slowly looked around, coming out of his trance and beginning to take in what had just happened. Realizing that three people were standing and staring at him in shock, two of them looking injured and disheveled, Duo came to the correct conclusion. Something violent had just happened and he had been the cause of it. Duo couldn't help the choked sound of despair that erupted out of him then. He buried his face in his hands, hating himself and wanting to crawl away and die.  
  
Heero approached slowly, He slipped a hand under Duo's arm. When Duo didn't react negatively, he helped Duo to his feet.  
  
Quatre said softly, "We have to talk about this. I won't judge now, but, Heero, I think it's clear that Duo does need professional help and that some of your assumptions were wrong."  
  
"No," Heero replied as he motioned the servant to proceed them up a flight of stairs, "I am not wrong, Quatre. I can explain this to your satisfaction."  
  
"I will expect you to, Heero," Quatre insisted tightly, his concern for Duo making him hard, "but let him rest for now."  
  
+  
  
"Sir? Shall we move in now?"   
  
The heavy set man, dressed in an old uniform, stared at the computer screen, reading the information just sent to him by his operatives. He left the other soldier hanging, the man standing at uncomfortable attention in his crisp uniform, the epitome of dutiful lieutenant. The commander, chin slumped on one fist as he leaned on a console and slouched in his chair, was the extreme opposite and he didn't care as he glared at the words and took his time, making certain that there weren't any omissions or assumptions. Finally, he straightened and leaned back, swiveling to face his lieutenant.  
  
"Stand down for now," was the man's command and the lieutenant scowled.  
  
"But, sir! They've obviously made their move!"  
  
The commander nodded thoughtfully. One beefy hand dug into his uniform coat pocket and pulled out a gold cross on a long chain. He sifted it from one hand to the other, as if he were mesmerized by it's gold glitter, and then he ran the end of the cross along a thick scar that ran from one side of his face to the other as if he were using the cross to scratch an itch.  
  
"I said stand down," the commander repeated more forcefully. "All the players aren't on the stage yet. I want them all, lieutenant, every damn one of them!"


	7. Masks

"Duo?"   
  
Duo hunched into his long, black coat, gloved hands sunk into pockets. He didn't want company. He had escaped the Winner estate, to perch on a craggy rock overlooking windswept mountains, just to avoid seeing anyone, having to explain, having to endure the fear and contempt they must be feeling for him now.   
  
Quatre settled next to Duo, wincing uncomfortably as his butt made contact with the freezing stone. He was dressed in a parka, scarf wrapped tightly about his throat and ears. He looked sideways at Duo, blue eyes trying to gauge Duo's mood as he pulled something out of his pocket and held it out. It was the laminated newspaper clipping.   
  
"Heero doesn't know, does he?" Quatre asked as Duo took the picture, looked at it with burning cheeks, and shoved it into his pocket.   
  
"Where did you get it?" Duo wondered bitterly, face ducking so that it was hidden by his fall of chestnut bangs. "Did you go through my things, thinking that you'd find a reason to toss me out? So what if I have a bootleg copy of a colonist band? So what if I thought that I needed a stiletto to defend myself? So what if Duo Maxwell's bi and has the hots for his ex war buddy?"   
  
Quatre pursed his lips, hugging his knees. It reminded Duo of the boy he had been, slight and angelic, a killer with the look of an innocent.   
  
"The maid found it when she was doing laundry. She was going to send the coat to the dry cleaner. It had... It had bloodstains on it. I didn't go through your things, Duo. I don't like to guess at the facts. Heero filled me in on as much as he knew, but that wasn't much, you realize. I'd much rather hear it from you."   
  
"Hear what?" Duo replied. He wasn't sure if Quatre was making charges that he had to defend against or not, but he wasn't up to it. The drugs were in his system full force and they had put him into the part of his mind that couldn't deal and didn't want to give a damn about anything.   
  
"At the party-" Quatre began.   
  
"You only know what you were told!" Duo cut in. "So do I! I don't remember much about it, Quatre. One minute I was about to get my cherry popped by the most important and notorious man on Earth or in space, Milliardo Peacecraft, and the next I was being tossed into a mental ward and told I was a violent, anti- unification sympathizer."   
  
"Duo...," Quatre breathed, embarrassed by Duo's crude, plain speech.   
  
"It's only the truth," Duo replied and then, thoughtfully, "Well, as much as I can remember of it. It is possible that I don't even have that much right."   
  
Quatre shook his head, raking his blonde hair back with his fingers, as he said in exasperation, "Duo! Please stop fighting me for a minute and try to answer my questions!"   
  
Duo shivered and scowled. "What questions?"   
  
"I wanted to know if it could be possible that you were reacting to your pills, at the party that night, the same way you were reacting in the foyer earlier?" Quatre asked. "The incidences seem similar."   
  
"What do you mean, 'similar' ?" Duo snapped back.   
  
"If you were needing a 'fix', at the party that night, then, I think, you might have been unstable, mentally, at the time," Quatre explained. "If Milliardo hurt you, and he might have if you were a virgin like you say, you might have had the same reaction. You might have felt threatened."   
  
Duo shook his head, twisting his hands in his lap in agitation. "Thanks for trying to give me an out, Quatre, but the drugs don't work that way. They make me tired, complacent, and easy going, just like the government wants me to be. Besides, I wasn't taking them then." Duo shook his head, frustrated. "I wish I could remember all of it! One minute I was watching Milli being dragged off by Relena and the next I'm rolling around with him in his room. Did he come back for me or did I change my mind and go after him?"   
  
"You were upset," Quatre told him sympathetically. "It's possible that you decided that Milliardo could comfort you."   
  
Duo blinked in confusion at Quatre. "What are you talking about?"   
  
Quatre went very still and then he said carefully, perhaps not sure if Duo was ready to deal with a painful memory, "You spent most of the party waiting by the front door for Heero. I had invited him, but he never came. You were eager to see him. I guessed then that you were interested in him as more than a friend."   
  
"Oh," Duo rubbed at his aching forehead, trying to remember. Nothing came to him.   
  
"Duo, Heero is the type of man who mistrusts governments and institutions," Quatre explained gently. "I can't really blame him after Earth and the Colonists turned their backs on us for political expediency during the war. Because of that mistrust, though, I think it's possible that Heero might be misreading your situation. After seeing what happened to you in the foyer earlier, Duo, I'm of the opinion that you do have problems and, since the pills do calm you, I can only conclude that the government is helping you."   
  
It played on Duo's own self doubts. He wanted to argue, fall back on the worn rhetoric he had refined and repeated for four years, that he was the victim of someone's vendetta against him or against remnants of the war in general, but Quatre had always been the sophisticated voice of reason during the war and Duo was readier to doubt himself than Quatre.   
  
"I have a psychiatrist and a doctor on staff here," Quatre continued. "If you like, I can have them examine you. At least entertain the idea that you may be having difficulties coping and that your violent action today, and at the party, might be valid symptoms of those difficulties. As for your physical appearance, that may be a result of not taking care of yourself properly. You lived on the street as an orphan. You spent only a short time in a church institution. After that, you ate as best you could, perhaps, not really knowing how to eat and take care of yourself properly. It's not a stretch to think that your under-development might have been caused by that."   
  
Quatre squeezed Duo's shoulder sympathetically. "Duo, all I am asking is that you consider, normal, logical reasons before considering a plot against you. If you take the time to truly think about it, you would find it as hard as I do to believe that the government, the medical establishment, the media, and the police force are coordinating against you."   
  
It did seem an insane notion, Duo had to admit. Often, he had doubted his own conclusions and had tried to dismiss it as paranoia, but, in the end, it had been much more comforting to believe that he wasn't really mentally ill, that his body was the way it was because of the pills, and that simply not taking them any longer, would miraculously make him look like Heero. Duo didn't want to face up to the fact that he was a hundred pound weakling, that he would never look any older than a fifteen year old, and that he really was insane and should be grounded and monitored. In the face of Quatre's calm reasoning, Duo's illusions began to crumble.   
  
"I hate myself!" Duo cried out and it echoed as he flung himself away from Quatre, forcing his gravity weighted body, at a stumbling run, back to the estate, determined to pack his bag and return to the safe illusions he had built at his apartment.   
  
Duo found Heero waiting for him in his room, sitting on the edge of Duo's bed."We had a disagreement in our interpretations," Heero explained before Duo could do more than stop in the doorway, jaw working and mind a jumble of anguish and self-loathing. "You shouldn't accept Quatre's interpretation when we have so few facts to support either version."   
  
"Heero...!" Duo began, but then had to stop. He couldn't find the right words to express how he was feeling. How could he explain to a man, who had always possessed the poise, the intelligence, and the body of a god, how it felt to be just the opposite, how it felt to have every hope and dream for the future ground under the heel of reality; a reality that included a life filled with disappointments. "I feel really bad, right now," Duo finally finished lamely. "I-I don't know what to think. Can you- Can you take me home now?"   
  
"Follow me," Heero said abruptly, stood up, and strode from the room. Duo, startled by Heero's sudden departure, followed awkwardly. "Heero! Slow down!" Duo called down the length of the lavish hallway outside his room, but Heero was already far ahead and turning a corner without looking back. "Shit!" Duo exclaimed, gritted his teeth, and hurried to catch up.   
  
Around the corner, double doors led into a huge room with a ceiling that was very high. Duo's footsteps echoed and his gasp reverberated as he gaped at the piece of a mountain that had been set into the very center of the enormous open space. Following Heero, Duo had settled on the notion that, ever a man of action, Heero was doing, promptly, exactly what Duo had asked him to do, taking him home. Taking Duo to that place instead, seemed completely out of character for Heero. It didn't make any sense, and Heero rarely ever did anything that didn't have a plan.   
  
Heero was standing at the foot of the rock, attaching a harness to himself and then slipping on gloves. Duo understood then. It was a climbing rock used for exercising. He frowned and began, "Heero, if you brought me here to impress me-" It was supposed to be a joke, but Duo was still too upset. It came out sounding angry instead; an accusation. Heero gave Duo a look that was unreadable and began to climb. He had shed his jacket and Duo saw that he was wearing a simple, thin, white shirt and a pair of dark jeans. His indoor shoes hardly slowed him down as he scaled the rock with ease and then settled on a resting shelf not very far up.   
  
Heero stared down at Duo, and Duo could see that his expression had changed. It held something powerful now, but Duo was too far away to figure out what it was. Heero said simply, calling down to Duo, "I have a secret. Climb up here and I will reveal it to you."   
  
"A secret?" Duo echoed in confusion.   
  
Heero gave one, firm, nod. "It seems that Quatre has made his case to you and convinced you that he is right. A man should listen to both sides of an argument before deciding. I wish to give you my reason why my interpretation of your situation may be the correct one."   
  
Duo looked down at his feet, arms going around himself and hugging himself tightly. There was another set of climbing gear pooled at his feet. He pushed it with one, booted toe. "I bet you order cripples to run marathons too."   
  
"You are not a cripple. You are not as weak as you pretend," Heero replied, voice like the lash of a whip.   
  
Duo's head shot up, his braid tossing about behind him like the lashing tail of an angry cat. "You think I'm just faking it?!"   
  
"I think you're afraid to fail," Heero corrected. "I think you have had enough of disappointment and you don't want to risk any more. To receive my secret, you will have to risk it, Duo. It's the price that I ask."   
  
"Why?" Duo demanded, his voice a pleading groan now. "Why make me do this?"   
  
"I can't make you," Heero corrected him again, "I can only ask."   
  
"That's not an answer!" Duo seethed, hands going into fists.   
  
"It is as much of one as you will receive until you are here." Heero patted the place beside him. "Climb or don't climb, Duo, it's your choice."   
  
Duo was stubborn. He almost turned away, almost told Heero, 'To Hell with you!' but that look in Heero's eyes... Duo found that, more important than any secret about his life, he wanted to be closer to Heero, he wanted to understand what that look meant. Cursing under his breath, Duo bent, picked up the climbing harness, and then began putting it on. Four years hadn't erased Duo's skill. He had been trained by life and by Dr. G to be a soldier's soldier. His strength might be lacking, but his mind still knew what to do. Climbing heights, especially when a Gundam, several stories tall, had been placed into his care, had been a necessity.   
  
It was a hard climb. Several times, Duo had to stop, seeing white before his eyes, feeling his heart pound almost out of his chest, and shaking with strained muscles, but, each time he stopped, he looked up at Heero and saw those dark, cobalt eyes, the slight frown between them, and that 'look'. Just a little closer, Duo thought, and he would know what it meant.   
  
Duo felt an inhumanly strong arm take hold of his coat and pull him the last foot up onto the shelf. Duo was glad as he slumped onto his back and just tried to breathe, the world going dim. It was frightening how long it took him to get his breath, how long it took for the world to return, how long before Duo's eyes were able to focus on Heero's face hovering above his own. That look. It hit Duo full force. It was more than concern. It was more than a friend gave a friend. It was...   
  
"Your psychiatrist isn't a psychiatrist," Heero said almost in Duo's ear. "He worked for Oz in a paramilitary unit."   
  
"W-What?!" Duo forgot all about deciphering Heero. He went white, incredulous. "Are you- Are you sure about that?"   
  
"Yes."   
  
Duo sat up and the world spun as he exclaimed. "B-But that can't be! It can't ! If he's not a psychiatrist... Oh, God! I told him everything, Heero! I- I... Shit! Shit! Shit! I told him everything!!!"   
  
Pride didn't matter as shock, embarrassment, anger, and betrayal hit Duo like a ton of bricks, breaking all of his control and leaving devastation in its place. He choked, shuddered, and then began to cry. He hated himself for crying, he hated the psychiatrist for not being a psychiatrist, he hated whatever powers had sent the man to trick him, and he hated Heero Yuy for witnessing his utter collapse.   
  
Heero was very still next to him, perhaps sensing that hate, or simply not knowing what to do with a sobbing man who was dancing on the edge of total disillusionment. Duo sensed, rather than saw, Heero moving. He readied a curse, wondering if he could even shout it through his racking, heaving crying, but knowing that he would find a way, believing that Heero was about to leave him there on that rock, disgusted by him, disgusted by a man who couldn't keep it together. Duo's shock deepened as Heero's hands took hold of him and, with the uncertain hesitation, and awkward roughness of a man unused to expressing gentleness or emotions, pulled Duo into an embrace.   
  
Duo's mind went into wild circles of confusion as those muscular arms pulled him against a chest as hard as the rock beneath them. Heero was holding him too tight, but Duo didn't care. He hid his red, weeping face against Heero, and began to cry for more reasons than the one of betrayal. Duo couldn't remember the last time that anyone had held him the way that Heero was holding him now. He wanted it to last. He never wanted Heero to let go. Forget pride, he told himself, forget hate, embarrassment, and betrayal; Heero Yuy was holding him!   
  
"The climb," Heero said against the top of Duo's head. "I had to prove to you that you still had choices and that you were able to make one. A lot was done to you, mentally and physically, but you are still Duo and you are still the strong, intelligent, and capable man I knew from the war. As long as that is true, Duo, you can fight back. You can achieve your freedom."   
  
Duo sniffled, the tears receding, but the ache of the wound Heero's earlier revelation had dealt him still fresh and bleeding. Duo knew that it would bleed for a long time to come. He had told the psychiatrist his inner most secrets about himself, hoping, when he had thought that he really was suffering mentally, for a cure good enough to win him release to space again. To think that the man had been funneling everything Duo had said to a third party...   
  
Duo's mind closed up like a sensitive flower and he shoved emotions and the bitter truth down deep. He simply couldn't handle it. Heero wanted to believe that he was strong, but, at that moment, he felt very weak and incapable of dealing.   
  
"I'll take you back to your room," Heero said after awhile and Duo sniffled and nodded. "I'll repel us down to the ground."   
  
Duo couldn't look at Heero. He felt ashamed and uncomfortable as he was forced to admit, "I don't think I can help much. That kind of- kind of took it out of me."   
  
It was awkward. Heero strapped Duo to his own belt and Duo held on as best he could, dangling from Heero, as the man slowly lowered them down by ropes. At one point there was a snag and Heero spun alarmingly. Duo felt Heero's body impact hard with the rock and he heard Heero's deep grunt, but then the man straightened out the lines and continued on with hardly a pause.   
  
When their feet were on the ground again and Heero was unbuckling them, Duo said softly, "I'm sorry."   
  
"It's not your fault," Heero told him as he put an arm around Duo's waist, supporting him as they limped back to Duo's room.   
  
Duo was exhausted. Between the drugs, the revelation of Heero's secret, and the climb, he could hardly think straight or support his own weight as Heero sat him on the edge of his bed. Using efficient motions, with a skill he had probably picked up during the war helping with the wounded, Heero helped Duo off with his coat, gloves, boots, and loosened the buttons of his shirt.   
  
Duo allowed himself to fall back onto the bed then and Heero lifted his legs and moved them onto the bed so that Duo was lying flat. A comforter came next and Heero tucked it up underneath Duo's chin.   
  
Duo couldn't help a weary, bitter smile. "Thanks Mom," he breathed and fell asleep as Heero snorted in amusement. That small, forced attempt, to lighten a depressed atmosphere, helped Duo to slip into pleasant dreams when it should have been nightmares.   
  
+  
  
Duo awoke some time later, feeling rested and more alert, but not emotionally better as he remembered the awful information that Heero had given him earlier. He lay quietly, thinking, trying to come to terms with it, when he heard a movement not far off.   
  
Duo blinked as he turned his head and saw Heero, shirt off, staring at himself in a dresser mirror, body turned at an awkward angle as he tried to see the back of one shoulder. The skin there was obviously mangled.   
  
Duo was off of the bed at once, ignoring a brief wave of dizziness and the drag of his body, as he made his way to Heero. "You did this climbing down, didn't you?" Duo accused roughly, trying to hide his guilt behind irritability, acting as if it Heero had done it on purpose. Surprised, Heero looked down his body and under his own arm as Duo appeared there and tried to examine the wound. "It's nothing," he said guardedly and tried to turn away.   
  
Duo stopped him with his small hands. "Don't be a baby. Let me look!"   
  
Heero's skin shivered as Duo touched him. At first, Duo thought that it was aversion, but then Duo saw a hot blush bloom under Heero's tanned skin. Duo felt a corresponding blush on his own cheeks as he tried to keep his mind on the task at hand. The wound was worse than it had first appeared. The skin was definitely torn and ragged... Duo frowned as he touched the 'skin'. It felt like skin. It looked like skin, but underneath, Duo could see another layer of paler skin.   
  
"Heero?" Duo wondered, shocked.   
  
Heero shrugged. "I told you, it's nothing."   
  
"It's fake skin, Heero!" Duo argued. "It's stuff they use when someone's been... badly burned or scared. Heero, did you-"   
  
"No," Heero replied, quickly reassuring Duo. "I was working undercover, gathering information. I couldn't take the chance that I would be found out, questioned, and strip-searched. I have marks that enemies might know."   
  
"What marks?" Duo wondered, his relief that Heero wasn't hiding the aftermath of severe injuries, being replaced by suspicion and confusion. When Heero didn't reply and began to pull away again, Duo dug his fingers into the fake skin and ripped it with a violent motion.   
  
Heero let out a shout of pain. The bio adhesive of the fake skin was strong, meant to be taken off with a special solvent. "Duo!" he protested.   
  
Duo reached out again, almost manic, and ripped again before Heero could back away. This time, fake skin was taken off from Heero's side and chest so harshly that his real skin bled. Heero grabbed Duo's wrists then and held them tightly, face furious.   
  
"Why are you hurting me?!" Heero demanded.   
  
Duo turned his hands into fists, helpless in Heero's great strength. He replied harshly, "No lies! Not from you."   
  
Heero looked pained as he released Duo abruptly. He turned away and said firmly, "No, not from me."   
  
Duo hesitated, but Heero didn't move. He didn't offer resistance as Duo reached out and began to, much more gently, peel away the rest of the fake skin. It took time and patience, but what Duo's fingers were revealing kept him working at it. Very slowly, a large tiger appeared; Orange, crimson, and black, the front half was spread across Heero's shoulder blade, mouth snarling with fangs, eyes bright, and claws extended and clawing an invisible foe. The bottom half of the tiger disappeared around Heero's side. Duo kept working until he was facing Heero, revealing the powerful legs and hindquarters, bunched in a spring over his muscled stomach. The tail was curled, coming up to center on one of Heero's nipples.   
  
"It's beautiful," Duo began to say, almost discarding anger and fear that Heero had been hiding something from him as well as his enemies, when he saw the end of the tail. It was in the shape of a scorpion stinger. "Tiger Cell," Duo breathed, blood turning to ice as he recognized something every Oz officer would recognize and fear, the symbol of one of the most deadly and fanatic mercenary cells during the war.   
  
Duo looked up into Heero's guarded eyes anxiously, hand on the stinger of the tiger. "Heero, what the Hell's going on?"


	8. Sparks

"I did a lot of things during the war that I'm not proud of," Heero said as he shrugged into his shirt.   
  
"During the war?" Duo wondered sharply. "What about now? That tiger tattoo was worn by members of the Tiger Cell to mark them, to assure their solidarity, because, anyone captured who had one, was given an immediate death sentence. You could have had it removed, Heero. Why didn't you if you're not proud of it?"   
  
"The Tiger Cell liberated Oz occupied towns and cities-," Heero began. Duo cut him off viciously, "By any means necessary. They didn't care who was hurt, who was in the way of their objectives. I saw some of the carnage that they had left behind. The government was right to hunt them down and have them executed."   
  
"Duo..."   
  
Duo motioned sharply with one hand in a curt sign for Heero to shut up as he bent by the bed, jerked up his bag, and slammed it on top of the bed. As he stuffed his clothes into it, he accused, "You said no lies, but you don't want to tell me the truth either, do you? It's all 'classified' and 'I can't trust you not to spill the beans', but now that I see what kind of secret you're keeping, I finally get it. Your part of that anti- unification movement that put my ass in the sling to begin with! You came to evaluate me all right, to see if I was angry at the government enough to betray them and join with you and your murdering friends!"   
  
"Duo!" Heero's grip ground bones together as he grabbed Duo's arm and pulled him roughly away from his task. Duo glared at Heero, nostrils flaring and amethyst eyes snapping with anger.   
  
"Are you going to kill me now that I've figured it out?" Duo wondered. Inside of his chest, his heart was breaking. It was the worst pain he had ever felt. He wanted to die then and there rather than face yet another betrayal, a betrayal far greater than the one of his trust. This betrayal was of his heart and soul.   
  
Heero glared. His chest was heaving, his half open shirt showing his bunching and releasing shoulder muscles. His face was seething, eyes like dark blue fire and mouth set as hard as granite. "Why are you so blind?!" Heero demanded in a deep, wounded voice. "Why can't you see... Why can't you understand how I..." Unable to express what he felt in words, Heero suddenly grabbed Duo's chin in a grip made cruel by his passion. He leaned in and devoured Duo's lips with his own.   
  
Duo's eyes flew wide. He struggled, shocked, feeling softness, sweetness, and a hot tongue trying to force an entrance between his lips. Duo's free hand reached back behind him. He found a solid object to grab onto and then brought it around hard, straight at Heero's head. Heero snatched the lamp from Duo before it could connect and let it drop without stopping his attempt to make Duo's lips open to him. When he wrapped an arm around Duo's slight body and pressed him close against his own, wanting Duo to respond, Duo did respond, kneeing Heero straight in the groin.   
  
Heero couldn't cry out. He choked, making a strangling noise, and folded over onto the floor. Duo put some space between them, face livid with fury, as he shouted, "Mother fucking asshole! I hope your balls go straight up to your eyeballs and stay there!"   
  
"D-Duo? I- you- misunderstand... s-sorry," Heero managed.   
  
"You think that cuts it?!" Duo snarled back and looked for something heavier than a lamp to subdue Heero further. "Nobody tries to rape me, fuck face!"   
  
Heero went still, skin going alarmingly pale as he looked up at Duo with stunned eyes. Duo stopped his search, surprised. Heero's shock was plain. He had never seen Heero display any emotion that clearly before. It made him forget about self preservation long enough for Heero to say. "I was- I was only trying to... to show you that...." Heero made a visible effort to bring emotions under control. His face smoothed out and his voice sounded as if he were uttering a mission report, level and precise. "Duo Maxwell," Heero said firmly, forcing his voice to be steady and clear, "I was not going to rape you. I was attempting to make you understand that I was not trying to use you for the benefit of the Tiger Cell. I was attempting to make you understand that I wish to help you for purely personal reasons. I thought that we shared a mutual attraction. I did not expect my declaration of my feelings towards you to be rejected. I am sorry. My inexperience in this area caused you to make a wrong assumption about my intentions."   
  
"Shit!" Duo glared down at Heero, hands on his hips tensely as he tried to absorb Heero's words. His heart was still pounding and it was still hurting. His mind was a mass of confusion as he replied angrily, "You must have a pretty low opinion of my intelligence, Yuy!" He glared, "Or a pretty high opinion of yourself, if you thought a little kissing was going to make me forget about you being a member in a 'baby killer' cell!"   
  
"I was preparing to explain," Heero argued as he sat up, both hands holding his crotch and face still deathly white.   
  
"Didn't seem like it to me!"   
  
Heero began to launch into his explanation without preamble, wanting Duo to understand. "It is true that I am a member of the Tiger Cell."   
  
Duo turned towards the bed and his bag again, mouth trembling as he tried to hold himself together and not let Heero see how devastated he was. "Then you don't have to say anything more."   
  
"I do!" Heero retorted more strongly and then stopped himself, controlled his temper, and went on, "When I joined, it was after the Colonies had rejected us and when I wasn't in possession of Wing. I fought with the Tiger Cell in a plain Suite because, at that time, their cause seemed to mirror mine. We were both committed and willing to give our lives for peace. After several battles though, and seeing that some of the people we had been attempting to liberate were siding with Oz to achieve an occupied peace, some of the Tiger Cell leadership decided to take a more radical stance. They declared sympathizers with Oz our enemies as well, and were of the opinion that they had to be taught 'a lesson' so that more civilians didn't make such deals. I, and some of the other members, rejected this change and we stood against them when they attacked a city." Heero touched the tattoo hidden by his shirt, eyes on a bitter memory. "Many men died to hold to the first ideal of the Tiger Cell. I, and only a handful of others, managed to make it out alive. We keep our tattoos to honor that first ideal and the men who fell protecting it."   
  
"And?" Duo prompted as he zipped up his bag.   
  
Heero blinked. "What more is there to say?"   
  
"Why were you hiding it? What operation were you on where that tattoo was a danger to you?" Duo demanded.   
  
"I can't tell you that," Heero replied quietly.   
  
"Then we REALLY don't have anything more to say to each other!" Duo snapped back. "You asked me to trust you, and I have, but you have to trust me in return. Since you won't do that... Shit! Yuy! Can't you understand why I'm so upset? Every time I turn around my illusions are getting ripped up. Those illusions are all I had that made life worth getting up in the morning for. Now, I have nothing! I have a psychiatrist who's telling my deepest, darkest secrets to Oz, a government who wants to see me go down for some unknown reason, pills that are making me a hundred pound, junkie, and a stinking boyfriend who thinks even the time of day is 'classified'!"   
  
Duo froze, hands gripping his bag convulsively, face white, and eyes wild as he realized what he had just said. He heard Heero stand up slowly and then take a step towards him. "Boyfriend?" Heero repeated.   
  
Stupid, stupid, stupid! Duo thought to himself. "Well, you did kiss me. What else am I supposed to think? Do you go around trying to french kiss all of your friends?" He added acidly, faking an 'I could care less' attitude, "Don't get delusions of grandeur or anything! It's not like I'm feeling too good about you right now, especially after," he made a vague motion with one hand, "everything that just happened."   
  
"Oh," Heero replied.   
  
Duo heard a thrumming hurt in that one word. Cursing himself again, he tossed the bag aside and turned to Heero. "Look, I guess we're all screwed up now," he said. "I think we just had a Gundam Pilot version of knocking heads on the first kiss. I want to laugh about it, but I just can't right now, because my gut hurts too much. I have to figure out what's going on. I have to know that what you're saying about the Tiger Cell is true, because if it isn't, if you are part of the anti unification forces, then there will be a lot more than a lack of words between us, understand, Heero?"   
  
"Yes," Heero replied shortly, face very still and intense eyes on Duo, as if Duo had his life in his hands, or his heart.   
  
"I'm done being kept in the dark and manipulated like a puppet," Duo continued. "You told me that I had to make choices and to be strong if I wanted to be free. Did you think that you would be exempt from that philosophy?" Duo asked.   
  
Heero quirked a smile, but it was sad. "No, I suppose that I didn't. I knew you would begin to question me soon, that Quatre would be devil's advocate and make you doubt me."   
  
"I'm doubting everyone until I figured some of this out for myself," Duo replied firmly and he felt suddenly stronger, adrenalin rushing through him and counteracting some of the weakness and disassociation caused by his pills. "First, I'm going to have a visit with Quatre's doctors to get a non-government opinion of my condition. Once I have that, I can better plan what to do next." Duo gave Heero a hard look. "Bottom line, Heero. I'm done following you until you think you can trust me enough to give me some real information that will convince me that I should."   
  
Heero nodded and Duo saw a look of respect. "You sound like the Duo that I used to know," Heero said softly.   
  
Duo grimaced. "The old Duo would have broken some bones." When Duo saw a flash of pain in Heero's expression, quickly controlled, he relented as much for his own heart as Heero's as he said gruffly, turning away, "Next time, don't kiss so damn hard!"   
  
"Hn," an expression of Heero's that said volumes or nothing at all, but Duo thought that he heard surprise and relief.   
  
"I need some alone time," Duo said. "Is food a possibility later? I mean, do I have to ring for a servant or anything?"  
  
"Dinner is at six in Quatre's personal dinning room," Heero replied as he headed for the door. "A servant will come to take you there."   
  
"That's good," Duo replied, "because this place is like a rich rat's maze."   
  
He turned towards the door and found Heero gone and the door closed. Duo sat heavily on the bed then and just stared, face flushed and mind running on all pistons. Heero had given him a great deal to think about and he wasn't sure where to start. Touching his lips, remembering Heero's kiss, Duo wished that he could start right there, trying to figure out what had just happened and how it could have gone so terribly wrong, but, as much as he wanted it to be otherwise, danger was all around him, he felt, and finding out which forces were arrayed against him, and for what reasons, had top priority. It was time to think like a soldier again.   
  
+  
  
Duo sat down at the well-appointed dinning table, feeling very out of place. He had spent his life, either standing while eating, enduring rough accommodations, or suffering through night club restaurants who's tasteful decor often included blaring rock music, red plush, and ugly bouncers at the door. A few award ceremonies, and two dinners with the elite, hadn't made him prepared for the fine china, the silverware, and the gold edged plates. He blinked in amazement at the fresh flowers in Ming vases, and the fine linen tablecloth.   
  
"There won't be a test afterwards, so relax," Quatre joked as he sat across the table from Duo, completely at ease as a servant came forward and poured tea into his eggshell china cup. "Just tell Gibbs here what you would like to drink, Duo, and he'll get it for you."   
  
Duo looked at the proper serving man and changed his mind about asking for a beer. "Water's fine," He managed without too much embarrassment, "and, uh, some coffee after I eat."   
  
"Very good, sir," the man said and signaled to someone else. That man came forward and poured Duo his water.   
  
Quatre began to speak, but Duo forestalled him, "Can we- Can we not talk about anything too important right now, Quat?" he pleaded. "I have a nervous stomach. I can't think about things and eat at the same time."   
  
Quatre nodded. "All right, Duo. Please don't worry about it. I was just going to say that the others will be down shortly."   
  
"Okay, good," Duo replied. He looked down at his shinning service. "Uh, I don't know how to use most of these utensils."   
  
Quatre shrugged, "I just use one. The serving people like to keep up the appearance that I'm the cultured Master Winner, even if I don't comply most of the time."   
  
Duo found himself laughing, but he said, feeling rude, "Do we have to eat like this the whole time I'm here? I mean, can't I just have a hamburger in the kitchen or something?"   
  
Quatre laughed as well. "I usually have something brought to me in my rooms. You can too. I'm afraid the kitchen is very large, commercial grade, and you wouldn't be comfortable there. The employees do have a commissary. If you like, you can join them."   
  
"That last sounds like a plan," Duo replied. He was used to that kind of atmosphere, especially from the war when he often had to share a mess hall with soldiers.   
  
"Good evening, sir,' the servant said as Heero entered the room. Heero only gave the man a nod as he walked to a chair, pulled it out, and sat next to Quatre. He had been walking gingerly, still sore from the knee to the groin, Duo surmised guiltily, and then frowned as he amended his reaction. It wasn't his fault that Heero was keeping secrets, it wasn't his fault that the man lost his temper when his motivations were questioned, and it definitely wasn't his fault when the man had been so inexperienced that he had hurt Duo by pressuring him into a kiss.   
  
Pressuring him into a kiss... Duo glanced furtively at Heero and found the man staring at him frankly in return as he placed a napkin in his lap. The man had kissed him. Now that Duo wasn't so shocked and angry, the act began to sink in. The why and wherefore of the kiss demanded answers. How serious had it been? What had Heero been thinking when he had done it? What did he intend to do now that Duo had all but admitted that he was interested in him and then had rejected him?   
  
"Everything all right, Duo?" Quatre wondered. There was a soft nervousness to the question. Quatre was empathic, not telepathic. He could probably sense the emotions thick in the air, but not know exactly what they meant.   
  
Duo pulled his eyes away from Heero. "Fine, Quat. Just fine," Duo mumbled as he looked down at his plate. "Can we eat now?"   
  
"Yes, of course," Quatre replied, letting the matter drop diplomatically. "Gibbs?"   
  
Dinner was a cut of beef Duo was unfamiliar with, a mustard sauce he found himself scraping off of the meat, and pan fried vegetables that he half-heartedly nibbled at, hating vegetables. He was going to find the commissary right after dinner, Duo thought, hoping to find some plain food there that he could stomach.   
  
"Gibbs," Trowa said from behind Duo. "Get Duo whatever he wants to eat and stop trying to make him eat that crappy foo foo food."   
  
Quatre looked up from his own plate and blushed when he saw Duo pushing his food around his plate. "Duo, I'm so sorry. I didn't know that you were disliking your meal. Yes, of course, Gibbs, find Duo something else at once. He needs to eat."   
  
"So'kay," Duo mumbled in embarrassment. "I didn't exactly speak up. Sorry to be trouble, but I'm not used to this kind of food. I've been living on ration packs and instant meals too long."   
  
"Far too long!" Quatre agreed.   
  
Trowa was coming around the table. Dressed in a green turtle neck sweater and dark pants, Trowa had grown very tall and slim, his body the tightly knit, muscular frame of an acrobat. His face was hatchet thin, more sharply planned than it had been, but his quiet , solemn eyes were still hidden behind a fall of mouse brown hair. The most distinguishing change, besides his height, was his beard and mustache, cut close around his chin and lips.   
  
Duo knew how close Trowa was with Quatre. If he hadn't, he wouldn't have been able to guess that it went far beyond friendship now. Quatre gave Trowa a warm smile and Trowa squeezed Quatre's shoulder as he sat next to him on the opposite side from Heero. That was the only display Trowa afforded Quatre, his attention all on Duo as he looked Duo up and down intently.   
  
"What the Hell happened to you?" Trowa finally asked in his softly accented voice.   
  
Duo scowled, "Nice," he replied tightly, meaning anything but.   
  
Quatre the Peacemaker was quick to step in. "Duo's been ill, Trowa," Quatre informed him. "Let him eat in peace and I'll tell you about it after dinner."   
  
Trowa arched an eyebrow, "Ill?" he replied doubtfully. "According to all the news stories he's been-"   
  
"You shouldn't believe everything you read," Heero stated with a warning in his tone. "Follow Quatre's advise." It wasn't a request. Duo saw Trowa take offense, but Quatre touched his arm briefly and he relented and didn't say anything more.   
  
"What would sir like?" Gibbs asked at Duo's elbow.   
  
"Sir would like to go back to his room," Duo said irritably as he stood up and tossed his napkin aside. "Bring sir a hamburger, a coke, and a pot of coffee."   
  
"Duo..." Quatre began.   
  
Duo gave a sharp shake of his head as he turned and began walking away from the table. He tossed over his shoulder. "I'm not in the mood. Later, Quat."   
  
Duo tried to find his room and failed. He was too angry, too irritable, and too depressed to bother asking anyone where it was. Instead, he wandered, going up and down halls, searching his temporary home and making a mental map. As he did so, he began to feel better, less lost, more comforted. Being flown half way across the world, and being deposited in a room on a unknown estate, had rattled Duo's soldier's sensibilities more than he cared to admit. He needed the comfort of familiarity, he needed to know where all the exits were, he needed to know where his place was in the midst of it all. The first two were easily accomplished. The last was still unattainable, and that kept his depression weighing heavily on him.   
  
A garden? Duo pushed open thick paned, glass doors and entered a solarium. It was dark already, the sun having fallen behind the mountains. There were a few dim lights, but the deep shadows were as inviting as the few, potted plants and the marble walkway that ended at the room's center and a glass dome in the roof. A bench was placed conveniently underneath the dome. Moving carefully through the shadows, Duo sat down and stared upwards at the stars and the blackness of space longingly.   
  
"There, but for the plots of 'men', go I," Duo whispered angrily, purposefully misquoting that famous line. He stretched out on his back on the bench and kept staring at the stars. Sleep claimed him soon after and, when it did, Duo dreamed of warm, sweet lips on his and cobalt blue eyes trying to tell him something...


	9. Advances

Sighing contentedly, Duo snuggled into down comforters, a gel mattress, and fresh linen covered pillows. He ignored the troubled voice inside of himself that said 'this is wrong', for as long as he could, hiding underneath a flap of comforter from the rising sun streaming through picture windows. When the sun reached midmorning, Duo finally began to question the very fact that he was in a bed.   
  
Opening his amethyst eyes, Duo blinked at his bedroom and the bright light pooling over the well appointed furnishings. He remembered... Duo sat up, rubbing at his eyes and then pushing his hair out of his face by raking it back impatiently with his fingers. He had fallen asleep last night in the solarium.   
  
He still had his clothes on, and for that Duo was grateful. That meant that someone had carried him to bed, but had not treated him completely like a child by performing the embarrassing duty of undressing him and tucking him in. It still bothered Duo that he hadn't noticed those ministrations, but had slept through it. He was trained to have a hair trigger, conditioned to wake and respond to the slightest abnormality in his surroundings. That he hadn't was an indication of his condition. The stressful revelations, tension, and travel, had left him exhausted to the point where he was both not thinking clearly and not being alert. Soldier mode, Duo reminded himself and squinted at the rising sun. He had grown used to sleeping late, having nothing to wake up to unless it was one of his infrequent doctor appointments. Laziness, both intentional and a by-product of the drugs, had to be stopped. Duo didn't have time to sleep. Things were coming to a head, he felt, and he needed all the time he could get to figure things out before... before what?   
  
Duo forced himself out of the warm bed and padded across the cold floor to a table and chair by the window. He blinked at his bottles of pills lined up there and a glass of water. Sitting down heavily, the ritual kicked in and Duo had a mindless minute where he accomplished the task of taking his pills. Ritual completed, Duo's mind took control again as if it hadn't occurred and Duo picked up exactly where he had left off in his thoughts.   
  
Duo frowned and rubbed at his eyes, the sun stinging them. He needed to identify his danger before he could protect himself against it, he reasoned. That in itself, he knew, was going to be a hard task. There were levels of omissions, lies, and enemies. Sorting them out, and putting them in a list of posing the most danger, was going to be difficult, if not impossible, considering his lack of facts.   
  
Problem Heero had been, or was, part of the Tiger Cell, the fanatic mercenaries that had given Oz, natives of Earth, and the Colonists, nightmares. Their past atrocities were a fact. Duo had seen some of them himself. Heero was claiming that there had been factions and that he had been a part of the good faction, if such a term could be used to describe the men who had made the wholesale slaughter of Oz troops their mission in life. Heero had come to Duo to evaluate him for his superiors. Finding out what he had been evaluated for, and who those superiors were, went on Duo's mental list. Until he had the facts of Heero's innocence. Duo couldn't trust him.   
  
Duo felt a pang in his heart. He rubbed his chest and bowed his head, remembering Heero's warm lips on his. In the war, they had all learned the cost of personal entanglements. When a person might have violently died at any time, when self sacrifice had been the order of the day, and subterfuge had been the only way to survive, having to worry about another individual could, not only cost a soldier his life, but the lives of those depending on him. Heero had held to that philosophy like a zealot. If he was still doing missions, for whatever reason, it didn't seem likely that he would try to advance some sort of relationship with Duo now. It seemed even less likely that he would ignore his mission, and, perhaps, his superiors, to take the time to help Duo. Knowing that, the motivation for the kiss became even more suspect. Duo had found out Heero's secret. Distraction, like an unexpected kiss, and misinformation, would have been Duo's first choice during the war as well. Duo's hands squeezed his knobby knees hard and he glared at nothing for a very long time, hating himself, hating his weakness, and hating his heart that was hurting so much when he needed it to be hard and cold. He needed to be like Heero had been during the war. He needed to forget personal entanglements, forget his heart, and center his entire being on figuring out what the hell was going on in his life.   
  
Next problem, Duo thought, forcing himself with a tremendous effort to go on with his mental list. How sick was he, how much was caused by the drugs, and how much of his health could be corrected after four years? Those question were almost as anxiety inducing as whether Heero was duping him or not. What would he do if Quatre's doctors told him that the drugs were causing his difficulties? What would he do if they weren't? What might happen if Quatre's psychologist were to make the same diagnosis as the supposed Oz sympathizer? How would he, Duo, cope if he found out that he really was paranoid and that Heero was only feeding on that paranoia for his own reasons? Worse yet, how much could he trust Quatre's doctors? Duo shook his head sharply at that, refusing to fall into complete paranoia. At some point, he had to trust, and he felt more comfortable trusting Quatre and his hand picked staff, rather than any alternative.   
  
Yet another problem; if there was a plot against him, then why? Old enemies from the war seemed the best bet, but Duo, cringing inwardly, had only to recall that he had killed most of them. The exception was Milliardo Peacecraft. Also known as Zechs, Duo knew that the man could be a cold-blooded killer when the need arose. A soldier through and through, Zechs' honor and his own morals, had never stood in the way of his duty. Duo recalled his hot tongue, his searching hands, and his very handsome face smiling with eager lust, tempered by a commanding, aristocratic bearing. Unfortunately, Duo could recall little else. His dealings with Zechs had been minimal to none during the war. It was true he had helped thwart Zechs from harming the Earth, but so had others. If the man had been looking for revenge, Heero would have been a more likely target. Duo didn't think that tumbling the virginity of, what had been, the least known of the Gundam pilots, much of a substitute or a starting point in any vendetta.   
  
Duo was left with a more reasonable conclusion in the end and one that he felt inclined to settle on. He, and the other Gundam pilots, had been a problem for the government. Heero had disappeared. Quatre had been, and was still, the untouchable head of the Winner name and all that went with it. Wu Fei had retired to an eccentric, scholar's life. Trowa had wisely attached himself to Quatre and, therefore, had made himself just as untouchable. Only Duo had neglected to 'fit in' completely into society. He had accepted awards, tried to attend parties, and had attempted to live up to the name of war hero while celebrating peace in a string of rather wild and exuberant ways. He had been so young, Duo remembered, and there had never been a time in his life when he had been free, and monetarily able, to live a comfortable life full of possibilities. It had been like being drunk, he recalled; happy, full of anticipation, and ready to stretch his wings and be something great. Duo had wanted to live up to his reputation, had wanted to be the war hero, and had wanted people to look up to him and admire him. He had also wanted to forget his terrible life on L2 and to be the kind of man that children would want to grow up to be.   
  
Duo put his face in his hands, elbows braced on the tabletop. He felt black misery overcome him and he wallowed in it, remembering the metal ward, the endless questions, the drugs, the therapy that had left him confused and doubting; doubting himself enough to do what ever he was told, take what ever he was given no matter what it did to him. By the time they had denied him space, called him a menace, issued their endless demands, and began creating the false image of an unstable, party-whore, freak, menace to society Duo Maxwell, Duo had lacked the will or the health to fight back.   
  
Duo's hands gripped his own face hard, fingers digging into flesh. If he discovered that they had lied to him, that his paranoia was justified, that four years of 'treatment' had been a coordinated effort with the people who had smeared his good name to bring him down and control him, Duo felt that the sky was the limit for what he would do then. There was a brief knock on the door and it opened right after that, Trowa pacing into the apartment without waiting for an answer as Duo looked up from his hands. Marks from his fingers were livid on his cheeks.   
  
"Will you sleep all day?" Trowa wondered softly. "I have been waiting."   
  
"Waiting?" Duo echoed, trying to come out of his own thoughts and almost prevented from doing so by the growing haze of the drugs.   
  
"To apologize," Trowa clarified as he went to a large window and looked out, a strong hand holding back the curtain as he continued nonsensically, "Quatre has set up tea on the gazebo. He would like you to join us there."   
  
Trowa looked like a poem, Duo noticed as he tried to fathom those two trains of thought, a poem about soft angst and young men in love. Trowa's soft eyes were unaffected by the strong sunlight and he was seeing something that made them fairly glow with emotion. Quatre, of course, Duo guessed. The Gazebo must be in sight of the window.   
  
"I shouldn't have judged you so quickly," Trowa said regretfully, but explained, "Quatre is too soft hearted most times. He doesn't, or won't, see that some men are too reprehensible to help. I try to protect him, now, by keeping those types of people from taking advantage of him."   
  
Duo glared. "You thought that I was trying to take advantage of Quatre? It wasn't even my choice to come here!"   
  
"I know that now," Trowa admitted. "Quatre and Heero explained that you truly are in need of help of one kind... or another."   
  
"I'm glad that someone else isn't sure what kind of help I need," Duo sighed and stood up. He scooped his pills into his duffel bag and zipped it up. It was a nervous motion. He didn't trust his new accommodations enough to leave them just lying about. "Heero is convinced I'm a dupe and Quatre is convinced that I'm shell shocked from the war."   
  
Trowa gave a slight shrug. "You look like a starved monkey with big purple eyes," he said as if it wasn't anything personal. "You're all thin arms and legs. You look nervous and your skin twitches once in awhile. I also heard about your... episode in the foyer. Many things could explain your condition, but I chose the most obvious, that you were what every news vid and story painted you to be, an out of control, perverted, drug addict, who had a penchant for graveyards, corpses, and attacking decent people in clubs."   
  
Duo snorted in sour amusement as he levered himself up from his chair. He needed a shower, clean clothes, and a clean bill of health from Quatre's doctors, not to be sipping tea and enduring doubtful looks and potentially upsetting conversation, even if Trowa was deciding to be nice now.   
  
"I'm not going to tea," Duo explained. "I have too much to do. Thank Quatre anyway."   
  
Trowa simply inclined his head and headed for the door without arguing, without trying to persuade a too thin Duo that he needed to eat. Duo felt a bite of anger, until he caught a glimpse of Trowa's relaxing shoulders and a brief expression of relief. He hadn't wanted a tense brunch in the gazebo any more than Duo.   
  
Duo let out a small sigh as Trowa quietly closed the door behind him. Duo felt relief, and a bit of gratitude, as the anger slipped away. Sometimes, silence and acceptance worked wonders and Duo wondered how long it had been since anyone had so quietly accepted his will about anything. It felt good. Duo's gratitude towards Trowa deepened as he tucked his pack where he could easily get to it and then went into the bathroom to shower. He needed to hold onto that good feeling as long as he could, Duo thought, knowing that anything Quatre's doctors could tell him was probably not going to be news he wanted to hear.   
  
After his shower, Duo found sweaters and coats in a closet purposefully left open to catch his attention. Taking a cue from Trowa, Duo slipped into a black, close fitting turtleneck and a pair of dark blue jeans. Putting on his low cut boots, Duo ignored the wall of mirrors in the bathroom. They were always going to be his enemy, he felt, and he wasn't going to spoil his mood by being confronted by his reflection; a stick figure wrapped in clothes, an over meter long, chestnut braid, it's only saving grace.   
  
"Hate you," Duo whispered to the mirrors as he passed them, feeling foolish, but needing to reassert himself, even if it was to inanimate objects.   
  
Opening the front door of his room, Duo found Rashid standing outside as patient as the mountains, face unreadable and burly arms crossed over his barrel chest. He nodded to Duo sternly, his desert weathered features so commanding that Duo knew better than to argue his presence there. He was only following orders after all, Duo thought bitterly, Quatre's orders.   
  
"So," Duo asked tightly. "Were you the one who found me last night?"   
  
"Everyone was ordered to search," Rashid replied in his deep voice, "but it was Heero who told me that you liked the stars and that he would search outside. I took his information and deduced a different outcome. Knowing your weakened state, I surmised that you might have gone to one of the solariums or the observatory."   
  
"There's an observatory?" Duo replied. When Rashid nodded, Duo made a note to visit it. Turning his mind back to his growing embarrassment, prickling anger, and bitterness, he felt the need to ask, "You carried me back to my room and put me to bed?"   
  
Rashid nodded again. "I also informed Quatre that you didn't look well and that it might be wise to stand by in case you needed assistance-"   
  
"A guard," Duo interrupted, riding over Rashid's last word. "You thought that I might be crazy and dangerous. I bet you're about to follow me around today, aren't you?"   
  
Rashid inclined his head yet again and said nothing. There definitely was not going to be an argument about it, Duo understood from the look in Rashid's stern, black eyes. Duo decided not to press it, not to sink any lower into depression by having Rashid show him just how powerless he was. Trowa's silent kindness was even more appreciated now that Duo was given a refresher of how things really were for him.   
  
"I'm going to the doctor today," Duo said quietly, looking anywhere but at Rashid. "I hope that you're not intending to go into the examination room with me or sit and listen in while I talk about my personal business with the psychiatrist. I would really...," he swallowed the bile of disgust at himself for the slight, begging tone to his voice, "I would really appreciate it if you would trust me and not- not do that."   
  
Rashid developed a small crease between his eyes. It seemed forever before he said, "I will stand at the door as I did here. I will not go in."   
  
Duo let out a small breath of relief, but he didn't thank Rashid. The man was granting him a small favor, but that didn't rectify that he thought that Duo was unstable and a danger to his Master Quatre and others. Stiffening his shoulders, unconsciously trying to stand taller next to the large man, Duo decided to ignore him and continue with his business. It was hard not turning around though. Rashid was silent for such a large man and, just knowing that he was a trained soldier, was enough to set Duo's awakening soldier instincts on edge. Those instincts were sending warning alarms, reminding him that a man who wanted to live to a ripe old age didn't turn his back on a potential enemy.   
  
Some of Duo's nervousness seemed to communicate itself to Rashid. He suddenly lengthened his stride and moved ahead of Duo saying, "I'll show you the way." Duo noticed that he didn't rate an honorific even as small as Sir or Mr. Maxwell. With Rashid and his men, such honorifics had to be earned. It told Duo where he stood in Rashid's estimation.   
  
"I want to see Heero first," Duo told him. "Is he out having tea with Quatre?"   
  
"No," Rashid replied. "Trowa informed me that he had declined."   
  
"Are you having him watched as well?" Duo wondered.   
  
"Not as closely as you are, but he is at odds with Master Quatre," Rashid replied with a patient, 'of course', tone to his words.   
  
"Over me," Duo clarified all on his own and Rashid gave another one of his too noble nods; condescending to answer. "Let's see if Heero is in his room then."   
  
Rashid adjusted their direction, backtracking to another hallway and then pacing sedately while Duo had to hurry his steps like a child to keep up. It hurt. It made him tired. Gravity pulled at Duo and his joints protested every step. Duo endured it, unwilling to ask Rashid to slow down and suffer worse than pain, more embarrassment.   
  
When they reached Heero's door, Duo had to lean against it and catch his breath, the sickly sheen of pain and exhaustion clear on his face.   
  
"S-Stay out here," Duo told Rashid, mustering enough temper to try to make it an order.   
  
Rashid stared, stared until Duo had to look away and back down, but Rashid didn't take advantage, he simply said, "I will wait here, just as I said I would."   
  
"G-Good!' Duo panted and felt the need to get away from Rashid's dark, appraising stare. He couldn't tell what the man was thinking, but Duo was imagining disgust, disgust that a simple walk had exhausted Duo. Duo fumbled for the doorknob and let himself in. It was mid morning. Heero, always an early riser, wouldn't be undressed or in bed at that hour. Duo didn't even have much hope of finding him there. After closing the door behind him, Duo reconsidered his unannounced entrance. He should have knocked. Heero was still in active duty of some sort and his hair trigger response might include accidentally shooting men who surprised him.   
  
Duo almost called out, opening his lips to do so, but then he heard a moan come from the bathroom and he closed his mouth on it. The moan had definitely come from Heero.   
  
Duo crouched, every muscle tense. He didn't wait to get Rashid. If Heero was ill or being attacked, then Duo was going to the rescue immediately. Still, even as he moved quickly and silently to the bathroom door, he memorized everything in the room, noted possible weapons he could use, and thought of several ways he could disable an attacker even in his weakened state. So, it caught him completely off guard when he saw that Heero, far from being attacked or ill, was naked and bent over the washbasin, pleasuring himself with intense motions.   
  
Blood scalded Duo's face as his eyes went wide and his heart thudded down to his toes. He had frozen in the doorway, breath sucked in and still, shocked witness as Heero, eyes closed, face frowning in concentration, and tiger tattoo rippling across his shoulder, was saying with deep, growling, passion, "Oh, Duo, you are so tight! I knew you would be. I just knew... That's it. Move with me. Spread yourself wider. Let me in. Let me in all the way!"   
  
Duo backed up, biting his lip and breaking skin. Tasting his own blood, his mind tried to deny what he had just seen, unable to comprehend that Heero Yuy was masturbating and fantasizing about him. Duo didn't consider love or even passion as a reason for Heero's inexplicable behavior. Instead, his thoughts wound down darker roads. When he caught a reflection of himself as he passed a mirror, Duo couldn't help but glare at it.   
  
Big, purple eyes. A big eyed monkey; all arms and legs. That's the way Trowa had described him and Duo thought that it was a fair description. A strong, handsome, competent man like Heero Yuy shouldn't have been fantasizing about him. unless... Duo thought of all the men who had tried to crawl into his bed, the ones who had been fascinated by his notoriety, by his long braid, by his purple eyes, by the very fact that he was still as small and as slim as a fifteen-year-old boy. None of them had cared about the whole package, least of all the mind, of Duo Maxwell, and he had rejected every one of them. Duo thought that it had to be that. Heero was fascinated by some small part of him, not Duo as a whole. The whole package was too unpalatable for anyone.   
  
Face burning again with reaction, Duo thought that he knew what might be fascinating Heero just by the way the man had been masturbating, taking the dominant role, imagining Duo captured beneath him, and that opened up an entirely new avenue of understanding for Duo. His weakness hadn't seemed to bother Heero. If Heero 'got off' on that weakness in Duo, then it all made much more sense.   
  
Duo went through the door of Heero's rooms and closed it very softly behind him. Rashid raised an eyebrow. Duo didn't explain his quick return, only swallowed hard, knowing he was red to his ears, and said, "Doctors."   
  
Rashid left his post by the door and led the way without question. He didn't look back at Duo, seeming to understand that Duo needed some time to regain his composure. It didn't take Duo long to begin to be angry and to feel abused, even though Heero hadn't really touched him. The idea that Heero was perverted, wanting a weak and small vessel for his passions, set itself firmly in Duo's mind. Heero hadn't really touched him, but Duo had the feeling, especially after the man's too forceful kiss, that he might be leading up to it.   
  
"Keep fucking yourself, Heero," Duo whispered angrily under his breath, "You won't get a chance with me."


	10. Blinders

"Duo Maxwell?" the nurse, a prim woman in a white uniform, smiled crisply and motioned Duo inside the small examination room. It wasn't a full fledged doctor's office, just an over-large room full of cabinets and shinning equipment.   
  
Duo blinked in surprise at the woman as Rashid took up his station outside. "You were expecting me?"   
  
"Mr. Winner informed us to be prepared to take certain tests and to have equipment for them on hand," she explained as she began to take instruments out of a drawer and spread them out onto a tray. Duo eyed a long, thin scope nervously. "I'm afraid that your reputation proceeds you as well," the woman continued apologetically. "I've seen the vids enough times to recognize you."   
  
"Oh," was all Duo could find to say as she handed him a paper robe.   
  
"The opening of the robe goes at the back. The doctor will be in shortly," the nurse told him reassuringly and then left, closing the door behind her.   
  
Duo shivered with cold as he undressed and put on the robe. Sitting on the paper covered examination table, his thin legs were left swinging far from the floor, the sound of crinkling paper the only noise in a deafening silence. He had far too much time to look at the waiting instruments before the doctor made his appearance. By that time, Duo was ready to change his mind.   
  
The doctor was a stern, no nonsense, older man with glasses perched at the end of a thin nose. He eyed Duo over the rim and then glanced down at the computerized chart he held in his hands.   
  
"From government records?" Duo wondered.   
  
"It's the only one you have," the doctor replied. He didn't shake hands. He sat on a metal stool in front of Duo that put him level with Duo's body. "I'm Dr. Kinson." His eyes were constantly scanning Duo as he spoke, "I must confess, I've always wanted to examine you."   
  
Duo frowned. "Why?"   
  
The Doctor looked somewhat embarrassed. "I watch those silly vid shows, I'm afraid, and when you appeared on them, I noticed... abnormalities. It was obvious to me that you were not developing normally, that something had affected you. War time after effects have always been an interest of mine. From what I understand of Gundams, they had minimal radiation shielding to make them light and maneuverable, they put great stresses on the mind and body, and they put a pilot in dangerous proximity to extraordinary weaponry. A boy is flexible, heals quickly, and can take much more punishment than a man who's skeleton and mental faculties have set. I could see the method behind the choice of young men for pilots. I could also see that there was the possibility for permanent damage. Quatre and Trowa both have permanent skeletal damage in certain joints and they have both displayed unbalanced mental processes on occasion. Trowa Barton was, unfortunately, made sterile by long term radiation exposure. Heero Yuy, after a brief examination, seems the least effected, but I have been told that his Gundam had been the most sophisticated in its operations."   
  
"He's also genetically enhanced," Duo remembered and then said impatiently, "I don't really care about all of that, okay? Yeah, I know I'm probably messed up good from spending weeks floating in space in a Gundam, getting blasted with ion cannons, and being shaken near to death from impacts and explosions, but I think Quatre's already told you what I'm looking for."   
  
The doctor nodded, but said, "I simply wished to offer an alternative explanation for your condition, Captain Maxwell."   
  
"Just do the examination," Duo grated. He didn't want to hear another explanation, another reason to believe that he was simply being paranoid. He wanted clear, concise test results to tell him that and he suddenly didn't care what test he had to suffer through to achieve that. The doctor pursed his lips and made a note on his chart. Then he said briskly as he stood up, "Let's get started then."   
  
+  
  
"Take him back to his room," the doctor's voice said near Duo and Duo felt a strong hand take hold of his elbow. "I had to give him a very mild sedative. Some of the tests alarmed him unnecessarily. I believe that he suffered torture at the hands of Oz during the war. I think some of the procedures reminded him of that torture. I tried to convince him to wait, to take a few days to calm down and finish the tests then, but he insisted on continuing. Here are his test results. They are very interesting. Have Captain Duo read them and come back to me when he's made a decision how to proceed." There was a pause and then the doctor said apologetically, "I'm afraid that he reacted to the sedative more strongly than I had anticipated. Now that I see the results of his blood work, I can see why. If you like, I can send a nurse along to monitor him, but he should be fine if you can manage to get him to bed." Someone, Rashid, must have simply shaken his head. The doctor said, "All right then. Thank you for taking care of him. Mr. Winner is generous, but I still don't have a very large staff and nurses are at a minimum."   
  
"I will take care of him." It was Heero's voice and Heero's hand supporting Duo as the ex pilot helped Duo leave the doctor's office.   
  
Once in the hallway, Duo pulled his arm out of Heero's grasp. He staggered. The world blurred and then came slowly into focus. Heero's serious face was watching him in concern, his chocolate hair a tangle over his dark, blue eyes. "I'm NOT sleeping my life away," Duo protested, "and I don't want YOU to help me!"   
  
Shit! He had sounded like a whining child, Duo thought. His tongue felt two times too big for his mouth and he was as incoherent as a drunk. He should have refused the drugs. His determination to complete all of the tests had made him vulnerable.   
  
Heero surprised him by agreeing. "All right, I will help you walk until your head clears.   
  
"No!" Duo leaned against the wall and stopped himself from sliding down it to the floor with a tremendous effort. "Where's Rashid? He can help me."   
  
"I came to see how you were doing," Heero replied, his face swimming in and out of focus. "I guessed that you would try to go to the doctor today. When I saw Rashid here, I told him that Quatre had been looking for him and that I would make sure that you didn't cause any trouble."   
  
"You lied and he left?" Duo growled. "He doesn't trust you either. Why would he do that?"   
  
Duo imagined Heero shrugging, though he couldn't see it. He could hear the rustle of cloth, Heero's shirt moving at a motion. "Perhaps you gave him reason to trust the both of us."   
  
Duo didn't think that was likely. It was more likely that, after seeing Duo hobble, out of breath, down the maze of Quatre's estate, Rashid's estimation of Duo's danger had down graded considerably. "Why did you lie to Rashid?"   
  
"I knew that you probably disliked his presence, that having a guard most likely upset you," Heero explained smoothly. "I thought, especially after seeing the doctor, that you would feel more comfortable with me."   
  
"You did?" Duo's voice was sarcastic. He wished that his head would stop spinning enough to think clearly, to really tell Heero what he thought of him. Instead, he said, "I kicked you in the balls the last time we were together. Can't you take a hint?"   
  
He could imagine Heero being angry. He tried to see it, squinting at Heero's face. Instead, he saw heavy guilt. "I shouldn't have made those kinds of advances towards you. Punishment was given where punishment was due, though it was excessive," Heero replied tightly.   
  
"You weren't the one being attacked," Duo snapped back. He shoved at Heero, but it put him off balance instead of Heero as he said viciously, "I don't want you to think that you can do that again. I don't want you around me. Go find someone else to fantasize about!"   
  
The drugs were making Duo stupid, letting him say his thoughts without realizing it. Duo took a few steps before Heero came out of his shock enough to move and block his way. A thundercloud full of lightning and rain couldn't have been darker than Heero's expression. His eyes were panicking though and his skin was flushing and then growing pale. It was easy to tell that he was finding it hard to decide whether he should be angry that his privacy had been violated, or embarrassed that he had been caught masturbating and fantasizing about Duo.   
  
"What are you thinking?" Heero demanded. Heero didn't deal in subtleties. He always went straight to the point. "It is obvious that you came into my room earlier without my knowledge. It is also obvious that you have judged me."   
  
"Why shouldn't I?" Duo wondered. "You were jacking off and thinking about 'doing it' to me!"   
  
Duo tried to get away again, tried to escape before emotions pulled him down and drowned him. It was Heero's words that stopped him, as powerful as any hand on his arm. "I am only human."   
  
Duo turned, staggered, and couldn't do anything but sit down hard on the floor as he lost his balance completely. The world did a sickening flip-flop and he put his head in his hands, squeezing his eyes tightly shut against nausea. He replied, "Human? I think 'pervert' describes you better."   
  
Duo lifted his head again when his stomach decided to stay where it belonged. He cringed and gasped when he found Heero crouched in front of him, face not more than a few inches from his own. He was given the full force of Heero's blue eyes. They were full of pain and confusion even though his expression was tight and angry. "Pervert?" Heero echoed and it was as if that one word weighed a ton and he was settling it onto Duo's shoulders as a punishment, something Duo could only escape with an explanation.   
  
"Yeah!" Duo exclaimed, straightening as best he could and meeting Heero's eyes with a glare. "You have to be a pervert to get off on thinking about me."   
  
Heero suddenly sat on the floor as well, cross-legged, hands limp in his lap and body slumped as if he were a puppet and someone had cut his strings. He stared at Duo in incomprehension. "Explain," was all he seemed to be able to manage to say.   
  
"Jeez!" Duo swore. "Do I have to spell it out? I'm skin and bones and I look like a kid! I'm not the kind of person people have wet dreams over unless they like-"   
  
Heero reached out and put a sun bronzed hand over Duo's pale lips, silencing him. "Don't," he said, "Don't say it. If you do. It will be between us forever." He leaned closer, until their noses almost touched, not dropping his hand and Duo too confused by Heero's intensity to think to react. "Duo Maxwell," Heero said very clearly and then paused, as if he were fighting every bit of training ever imposed on him. Duo saw him shiver ever so slightly and then he continued, his next words shocking Duo to the bone, "I have always dreamed about you. I have always wanted you. I spent the war in agony, denying myself, denying how I felt, refusing to approach you and break the training that I knew that I had to have to win the war. That war is over. That training I still need, in part, but the missions I perform now are far different. They don't require that I be, as in the war, more than human. They don't require that I deny myself a life. I am a man now. I am a man who is allowed now to make the choices that I couldn't during the war." Heero paused again, searching Duo's eyes intently, trying to see his reaction. "I came for you, Duo, not just to evaluate you for a mission. I came because I lo-"   
  
Duo jerked away, turned his body from Heero and wrapped his arms about his knees. He hitched on a sob and shook his head hard, making his braid whip over the floor behind him. "You're going to lie, aren't you? You want something from me. You want me to go on some mission for your baby killing Tiger Cell. You are part of the anti unification forces and what you're doing now is just a con to get me to cooperate. There is no way in Hell that Heero Yuy can care anything about me."   
  
"It's true that there is a mission that would benefit from your skills," Heero admitted, "But it doesn't have anything to do with the Tiger Cell. If it's that belief that is keeping you from trusting me, then I will never ask you to be a part of that mission or any other again."   
  
Duo was quiet, his mind trying to make sense of that, still trying to hold on to the belief that it was a con, because if it wasn't, if what Heero was trying to say to him was... what was he trying to say? That he had always wanted him? That he...   
  
"Say it again," Duo asked, hunched over, forehead pressed against his knees and every nerve and muscle tight, ready for his heart to be shattered by one wrong move, one wrong word from Heero. "Say why I'm not just a perverted fuck you want. Say why I'm not a con you have to run so that you can get me to do what you want. Say- Say what you had been going to say before-"   
  
"I love you," Heero interrupted very softly, but as strong as steel and without any reservation.   
  
Time stopped. Everything inside of Duo said, 'does not compute'. It was the drugs, he thought. He had to be hallucinating. This couldn't be real. When he felt the hand on his braid, touching it, caressing it, he sucked in a deep breath.   
  
"I used to do this while you were sleeping, during the war," Heero said thoughtfully. "I used to do it when you had your back turned, just touch the end, hoping that you wouldn't notice. Wu Fei noticed me doing it one day. He called me weak and warned me that you were a distraction. He's the one who convinced me to keep our mission separate."   
  
"After the war, I was ready for love," Duo said bitterly as he let out his breath in a gusting sigh. "I was young. I was healthy. I was looking forward to life. I looked for you, but you had already run away. I should have run too. Now... I don't have anything to offer you. The Duo Maxwell you knew is gone. He's the one you really want, isn't it? When you were playing with yourself in your room, you were dreaming of him, right?"   
  
Heero's chest was suddenly against Duo's back and strong arms pried him out of his fetal position, slipping about his waist and holding him in a comforting embrace. Heero's lips ghosted along Duo's neck. Duo shivered and another sob threatened to tear itself from his lips, a sob of wonder, a sob of a man who was getting his heart's desire.   
  
Heero said in Duo's ear, his breath hot. "I'm inexperienced in expressing myself. I've had sex, but I've never had to be a lover. I don't know the rituals, the correct way to approach you. I've already made mistakes. Duo, I can only speak plainly and hope that I am saying what must be said correctly- well enough so that you understand my intentions, my feelings." He groped for words. "You think that I want someone from the past, that what I feel is lust for a handsome boy. What I want is Duo Maxwell. All of Duo Maxwell. The Duo Maxwell that I hold in my arms right now. Perhaps there aren't any words to explain this feeling that I have. None of the ones that surface in my thoughts seem logical or able to encompass it. It's more than just the body that you have and my like or dislike for it... I think that I would feel the same no matter how you looked. It's deeper. Much deeper. From the moment that I first saw you, when you were trying to 'save' Relena Peacecraft from me, this feeling was with me, just as strong, just as powerful. It didn't matter where I went, or how long it was between glimpses of you, it never went away. The mission was valid, but only an excuse to see you, to know, once and for all, if you felt the same way about me."   
  
It was a question. Duo's thoughts were swimming. His anxiety was making being ill a real possibility. Their positions on the floor, just down the corridor from the doctor's office, sitting where anyone could see, was starting to disturb him. He needed safety. He needed to know where his pills were. He needed...   
  
"Help me back to my room," Duo said and Heero stiffened, not sure whether his worst or best hope had come true. Duo couldn't enlighten him. He was too weak, too unsure if his drugged mind was really experiencing all of what had just happened or imagining it. He needed a safe, quiet place to process it, to let it sink in. He couldn't begin to express how he felt to Heero until then.   
  
"It's okay," Duo said, a blanket reassurance to Heero that he hadn't been rejected outright, that Duo wasn't angry, and that Duo was all right. It was all he could say, all he could do to simply lay limp in Heero's arms as the man lifted his aching body off of the cold floor and the world slipped out of focus all around him.   
  
+  
  
"I need something to eat," Duo said as he limped to his bed and stretched out onto it with a groan. The joy of having the weight taken off of his joints were close to nirvana. "Something light. Soup, maybe, and some bread."   
  
Heero hovered, making sure that Duo didn't fall, and then he nodded and used the phone to call the kitchen. When he hung up, Duo had slipped into a calm place, lulled by the drugs and the sedative, body ready to slip into oblivion, but mind fighting it stubbornly.   
  
Heero pulled a chair close to the bed, turned the back facing Duo, and then straddled it. Resting his arms on top of the back, he watched Duo anxiously. "I ordered an onion broth soup. It will be easier on a sour stomach."   
  
Duo made a face. It didn't sound like that was possible, but he was too far gone to care. "You can go, I guess. I'm almost asleep."   
  
"I'll wait until your food arrives," Heero said, "That way you won't have to get up."   
  
"If you're waiting for me to discuss a relationship, you'll be disappointed," Duo warned. "I have a lot to think about... I'm not going to try and talk about it when these drugs have me so messed up."   
  
Heero was quiet and Duo was close to forgetting that he was even there, when the man said, "I can wait to talk, but... I've waited a long time to ask you how you feel about me. I think I know, but... "   
  
Duo found himself saying, "You know...? How can you know how much I love you? All I've done is hurt you, yell at you, and make you miserable...."   
  
Heero sat up very straight. Duo wondered why and then his own words sank in. He had just told Heero that he loved him. Duo felt a chill over his skin that penetrated even the drug haze. He didn't know why it bothered him to admit it to Heero. It was something he had dreamed about all of those lonely years. What was wrong with saying it now, especially after Heero had admitted to loving him too? Shouldn't it have been the happiest moment of his life? Shouldn't he thank God that his dreams had become a reality? Shouldn't he be holding Heero now and...   
  
"I don't know you," Duo said suddenly and that was the whole truth and the problem in a nutshell. "I don't know you at all."   
  
Heero had started to reach out to him, to caress him maybe or simply take his hand. Heero's face, slowly filling with some grand emotion, became as still as stone. He nodded, once, and withdrew his hand. "I understand," was all he replied, but that reply meant everything to Duo. If Heero meant to lie to him, to con him, then he wouldn't have given up just then. Duo had admitted a weakness. A soldier would have gone in for the kill.   
  
"You have my heart, I guess," Duo managed to concede roughly, still wishing he could call back that admission. He hadn't been ready to make it, hadn't wanted that vulnerability on top of everything else, "You don't have my mind yet, though," he continued, "and those two things go together, Heero. My mind still needs to know who the Hell you are and what you're up too."   
  
"Of course," Heero replied, as if that was completely logical. There was a thrum to his voice, though. Happiness, Duo realized, a complete joy he was trying to suppress.   
  
"Not fair," Duo murmured as his eyes closed. "You should have been an Oz interrogator. They went after a man when he was messed up too."   
  
"Duo," Heero began, shocked, but then said as if passing Duo's words off as drug induced, "I'll check on your food."   
  
"Kay," Duo slurred, "Have to sleep now. Eat later."   
  
"All Right."   
  
"Heero?"   
  
"Yes?"   
  
"Am I still a virgin, do you think?"   
  
"Why ask?"   
  
"Doctor. Tests. "   
  
"Oh." There was a soft chuckle from Heero. Duo felt his hand taken and warm lips pressed to the back of it. The ridiculousness of a man doing that to another man kept Duo lucid for one more moment, long enough to hear Heero say, "That doesn't count, Love."   
  
"Good... was saving that for you."


	11. Shadows

Duo awoke feeling as if his blood had dried up. He was cold, his head ached, and, when he opened his eyes, he felt confused and disoriented. He remembered being at the doctor's and undergoing tests. He shivered from more than cold. He hadn't like any of those tests. Some of them had been invasive, embarrassing, and painful. Some of them had reminded him of his time in an Oz interrogation room, arm strapped down and needles inserted under his skin; blood going out and blood going back in full of drugs that burned the mind as well as the body. Before he had been given the sedative, Duo remembered shamefully gibbering in fear, "Get them out! Oh, God! Please get them out!" over and over again like a mantra of despair and loathing.  
  
"The Doctor wouldn't tell me either," Quatre's voice complained. "He cited Doctor/ patient confidentiality. We'll just have to wait until Duo wakes up and reads the test results."  
  
"Duo frightened me, Quatre," Heero said and he did seem on edge still.  
  
"He was so pale and his skin was cold. He was very confused. I didn't think that he could even focus on me."  
  
"Well, you did the right thing, calling the Doctor in to look at him," Quatre reassured Heero. "It turned out all right in the end. Duo should have told you and the Doctor that he hadn't eaten. It made the drugs in his system that much more powerful."  
  
Heero sighed and Duo, trying to wake up completely, heard him walking about, pacing. "I wish... I wish he would trust me, Quatre. He doubts himself so much. He doesn't believe-"  
  
"I'm awake," Duo said quietly. He didn't care to eavesdrop any longer.  
  
Heero, ever observant, would have noticed in a few more moments anyway. Heero came to the bedside, Quatre staying seated not far away, as if he knew that he had to accede to Heero's dominant position at Duo's bedside. Heero looked down into Duo's face, a crease between his dark brows. "How do you feel?" he asked.  
  
It took Duo a moment to gather his thoughts. He had been expecting Heero to... what? Duo remembered, uncomfortably, declarations of love before oblivion. The only experience he had with relationships was restricted to terrible vid shows. Not knowing much more than that he had been a little apprehensive that Heero would suddenly begin to act that way, declaring his love, showering him in kisses, and calling him pet names while reading poetry. To be confronted by the usual, no nonsense Heero Yuy, was a relief, even though Duo was still tied in knots about how to proceed with a man he hardly knew, yet loved so much it was hard, even now, to deal with it. He had to keep Heero at arm's length, he thought, until he figured him out and knew all there was to know about him. Until then, their declarations of love were going to remain the 'elephant in the room'. It had to be that way, Duo thought. If Heero was doing something wrong, something he didn't want to admit to, then Duo wasn't going to look the other way, even for something as strong as the love he felt for Heero.  
  
"I feel like I was buried and then dug up a week later," Duo whispered and then coughed, his throat bone dry. Heero handed him a glass of chilled water and Duo drank it gratefully.  
  
"We have food for you," Heero told him and turned to pick up a tray from the side table.  
  
Duo hitched himself up on his pillows and was glad to feel the strength to do so. He wasn't injured, he concluded. The sleep had helped him greatly. When Heero placed the tray in his lap, he grimaced at the Jell-O, thin broth, protein drink, and crackers. "Guess a beer is out of the question?" He didn't need to look up to know that both Heero and Quatre were taking him seriously. "A joke, guys, come on, lighten up."  
  
Quatre made an exasperated sound. "Duo! This isn't a joking matter! I have everything a man could want or need at your beck and call. Is it too much to ask that you take advantage of it and care for yourself?"  
  
"It was worse than dumb, I know," Duo said apologetically. "I guess that I was just nervous about the doctor and forgot to eat. I also didn't want to get so nervous that I threw up. I do that on occasion, right Heero?"  
  
Heero nodded, remembering the gym incident. "Try to be more careful in the future," he said, as if he were giving an order, but Duo heard an underlying anxiety. Heero really had been frightened for him.  
  
Seeing that kind of vulnerability in Heero was frightening to Duo. He felt as if he had drilled through a mile of permafrost and been rewarded with a glimpse of unexpected sunshine. Heero's thinly veiled emotions were just as startling and unexpected. Duo felt that he owed Heero something for allowing him to see it, because, Duo suspected, it was Heero's choice to allow it. How much that had cost him, fighting ingrained training and his own dour nature, Duo could imagine.  
  
"Sorry," Duo apologized and meant it. "I didn't mean to upset you... you either, Quatre."  
  
Quatre stood up and finally decided to encroach on Heero's space. He gave Duo an impatient, blue-eyed look. "We have your test results Duo. Let's forget about your being an idiot, for now, so that you can read through them."  
  
"Are you feeling well enough?" Heero asked Duo, ready to fend Quatre off if Duo gave him even a small sign that he wasn't.  
  
Duo held out his hand though, as eager as Quatre. "Give it here. Let's get this over with and then I'll eat, k? I think my stomach is going to be in a knot until I know how things stand."  
  
Heero picked up the computer pad from the side table and handed it over to Duo. Duo took it, smoothed his long fingered hands along the sides of the pad, and then pressed the on button, using his fingerprint on the code pad. When the screen flickered to life, and words scrolled down, Duo experienced a flash of fear that almost caused him to fling the pad away from him and not look. Muttering, coward, to himself, he forced himself to begin reading.  
  
"Well?" Quatre prompted impatiently after awhile of watching Duo's face go through a range of emotions, none of them good. Heero surprised Duo by saying seriously, "If it is too personal, you don't have to tell us, Duo. I only wish to know whether to continue your rescue efforts."  
  
"No," Duo replied, his face white and his fingers trembling as he let the pad drop.  
  
"No?" Quatre echoed and felt Duo's anguish wash over his sensitive empathy.  
  
Duo stared very hard at the tray in his lap. He began to eat, mechanically and methodically. Heero and Quatre both stared at him, waiting for more. When Duo wasn't forthcoming, Quatre suddenly looked sympathetic and touched Heero's arm lightly. "He needs to be alone, I think," Quatre told Heero, and then to Duo, "I know that it would have been easier to believe in a plot against you, but, now that you know the reality of your situation, perhaps you might consider staying here, Duo? I can get you the best doctors to help you. I'm sure that the government won't mind if I request that they take the place of their staff. With work and patience, I'm sure you can heal, both mentally and physically, enough to be allowed to return to space."  
  
Duo felt the sting of tears and the searing heat of anger burning him up inside. "It doesn't matter what I do, Quatre."  
  
Of course Heero Yuy would be able to read upside down with ease and with a speed that made Duo's sudden grab at the pad and his quick move to turn it off, fruitless. Heero's face went very dark and his jaw clenched so hard that Duo thought that he would break teeth. His voice, though, came out surprisingly steady, shockingly matter- of -fact. "The drugs are a slow hormonal/ mood enhancing poison and you are permanently addicted."  
  
"Doesn't life just suck!" Duo hissed back and then shoved the tray off of his lap so that it splattered everywhere. Heero didn't make a move to get out of the way. His pants were covered in red Jell-O and hot soup.  
  
Quatre had backed up, wide eyed, confused, and guiltily contrite.  
  
"Life didn't do this to you," Heero replied steadily. "Men did. 'Why', is the question and why this method?"  
  
"It doesn't matter!" Duo repeated viciously. "Who cares why? Maybe someone just hated me enough to want to make me crawl and suffer. People are like that, right? Shit happens! This shit happened to me!" He quieted himself with an effort, panting with reaction, and then he shook his head sharply. "I'm going back to my apartment, back to what I know, back to ignorance. Life was much better when all I had to think about was a beer and a video game."  
  
Heero said firmly, not to be questioned, "Quatre, leave us alone."  
  
Quatre looked ready to protest, his face ashen, but then his lips pressed tightly together as he sensed that Heero had what Duo needed just then and that Duo didn't need an unnecessary fifth wheel to be a witness to his grief.  
  
When Quatre was gone, the door closed softly behind him, Heero faced Duo squarely. "Nothing is impossible," he said. "Doctors have often been known to be wrong."  
  
Duo felt outrage. "Are you going to give me false hope, Heero? Are you going to try and sugar coat a death sentence? That is what this is, you realize? The drugs are slowly weakening my body and my immune system. Dementia and organ collapse are a real possibility in the future. I can't stop taking them. If I do, the trauma of withdrawal will be so severe that my body won't be able to handle the stress. Someone wanted to hurt me Heero, hurt me good, and make it take a long time. My end isn't going to be pretty. In fact, that diagnosis paints such an ugly picture of my future, I don't think I want to be there for it."  
  
"The body is an incredible thing," Heero persisted, his blue eyes intense. "With training, it can be forced to endure stresses and work at levels most physicians would consider impossible." Heero picked up the tray, smeared by food. It was a heavy metal coated in sterling. Without seeming effort, Heero simply flexed his shoulder muscles and bent it in half as if it were butter. "I have been trained to do the impossible," he continued as he let the tray drop with a clatter. "If you allow me, Duo, I can train you to do the impossible too, overcome these drugs, overcome what they have done to your body already."  
  
"You left out the agony of enduring withdrawal, the physical pain of your training, and maybe the agony of failure on top of all of that," Duo replied. "Why should I bother? They'll still keep me locked up on Earth. They'll still force me to see their doctors and jump through their hoops. Maybe I can get off the drugs. Maybe I can save myself. What for, though, Heero? What the Hell for? What kind of life is this for anybody?"  
  
Heero replied, "Any life is better than no life at all, Duo. You know that. You also know that giving up isn't an option. That isn't who you are."  
  
"Not who I am?" Duo sneered. "I don't know you, Heero, and you certainty don't know me. What makes you think that there is anything I have left worth living for, that makes this life better than no life at all? What possible incentive can you give me to go through with what you are suggesting?"  
  
Heero leaned very close and Duo almost felt threatened by Heero's penetrating stare, a stare that seemed to lay bare his soul, his weakness, and his despair, showing it to Duo, making him feel it fully, before he offered up the one thing that would make Duo overcome it all.  
  
"Revenge."  
  
Duo blinked, shocked, and then a hot glow of understanding began to burn inside of him. Heero touched his braid, lifted it up, and ran it through his fingers. Duo wore it to remember the dead, to remember why he had fought and killed during the war. Revenge. It had been enough then and it was enough now. "Do you think it's possible?" Duo asked, the light of Shinigami glowing in his amethyst eyes.  
  
"I can find out who did this to you," Heero promised. "'Why' is harder, but 'why' is not as important, is it?"  
  
"No, it isn't. Fuck their reasons. I don't care about that," Duo replied sharply. He ran his hand down his braid and settled on Heero's hand, squeezing it painfully tight, emphasizing his next words. "You find those bastards for me, Heero, you get them to where I can take care of them, and I'll give you what ever you want, k?"  
  
Heero smiled and it was the smile of a soldier, blades and blood for the people who had harmed his Duo. "There is only one thing that I require," he said.  
  
Duo felt a tinge of wariness, still unsure of Heero's motives. "Only one?"  
  
Heero reluctantly let the braid drop and he turned away, suddenly tense. "It's not to be given," he replied. "It can't be a reward. It either is or it isn't, yet it is the only thing I care about or want."  
  
Duo understood then. "You offer me a gift and ask me to trust you," he said. "If you hope to ever get what you want, you'll have to trust me too. Tell me who Heero Yuy is. Tell me what Heero Yuy is doing trying to recruit screwed up Gundam pilots."  
  
Heero was silent for so long that Duo thought he had forgotten he was even there, but, finally, Heero turned to him, determination in his face. "You suffered Oz torture and didn't give them even your name. I remember that. I will trust you."  
  
Heero licked nervous lips as he came very close to the bed, his voice dropping into almost a feral growl as he said quickly and concisely, "I am working for the Preventers. The remnants of the Tiger Cell have formed a crack unit, an anti terrorist task force that eliminates threats to the alliance. We train new recruits and take on very difficult and dangerous missions. Our newest mission is still in the planning stage. We suspect that anti unification rebels have infiltrated an Earth installation. We suspect that they are trying to manufacture weapons of mass destruction, including advanced suits. Reconnaissance, at this stage, is essential, but the only entrance into a suspected site was so narrow that none of our trained agents could fit."  
  
Duo let loose with a bitter laugh and Heero stopped talking. "So, you remembered scrawny Duo Maxwell and thought to recruit him to snake through a pipe?"  
  
"Yes," Heero admitted simply. "I was hoping that you were still fit and willing to deploy your extensive training in the area of infiltration."  
  
"Why not just storm up to the front door and knock it down?" Duo wondered sharply. "Doesn't that make more sense?"  
  
"The situation is delicate," Heero replied as if he wished to do just that and was being held back. "It involves important individuals. We have to be absolutely certain of our facts before we can act."  
  
"I suppose you aren't going to tell me who is involved?" Duo asked. When Heero remained silent, Duo relented. "All right, I suppose that's enough. It could all be a lie," Heero glared and stiffened, but Duo continued unperturbed, "and I'll have to have a way to confirm what you're saying eventually, but... I know that took a lot, to say these things to me, Heero. I know it goes against your training for you to blather details of a secret mission to a loud mouthed guy who loves you, who doesn't even have the good grace to believe you. Sorry about that and all, but you have to understand, my love isn't blind, ya know? The guy I love is going to have to be as good a guy as I am... uh, well, maybe better. Sometimes I'm not the most law abiding citizen."  
  
Heero reached out and caught Duo's chin. Duo stopped talking. His grin was wide and dangerous. Heero grinned back and it was like a wolf, especially with his tangle of chocolate hair in his face making him look untamed and wild. "Love?" Heero said.  
  
"Well, yeah," Duo replied. "Don't get all mushy on me, okay? Just because I love you, doesn't mean I'm going to put on a skirt and start baking cookies, so don't get any ideas. ..., " he went quiet, thinking about his admission, watching Heero's face reflect his inner joy. Heero was beautiful, Duo though, achingly beautiful when he let his inner self shine through his granite like exterior.  
  
Duo couldn't keep up his attempt to hide his anxiety. "It's going to be tough.... getting over the drugs, getting back into shape... I'm not sure... If it gets too much, revenge might not be enough to get me through it. If that happens..."  
  
Heero touched Duo's braid, ran it through his fingers again, and then tightened his grip on it convulsively. "I won't lose you," he said with determination, but then softened uncertainly as he asked, "Am... Am I enough, Duo? If I'm with you. If I'm there for you at the end of it. ... Is that enough?"  
  
Duo sighed, closed his eyes, and thought about it. How much did he love Heero? Was it shallow and easily blown away? Would it go away when the first pangs of withdrawal, the reality of screaming, enduring, and maybe dying in a messy way hit him full force? Revenge should have been stronger. Revenge seemed more dependable. Duo knew that it wasn't either of those things. Duo knew that it wasn't going to be his strength when he needed strength the most.  
  
Duo opened his eyes and met Heero's worried cobalt ones. His mind could dance circles all it wanted and pretend otherwise, but his heart knew what rock to hold onto during a storm. It knew that the love he felt for Heero wasn't a tenuous or weak thing. It had started as a spark and fanned into a flame during years of separation, longing, and fantasizing. Now that he had the real thing in the real person of Heero Yuy and, wonder on wonder, Heero loved him too, Duo knew that love had become an unbreakable lifeline.  
  
"I told you not to get mushy on me!" Duo protested half heartedly, not sure he could admit feelings that deep to Heero yet. He was still coming to terms with it himself. "Well, let me get out of bed and let's get the torture started, okay?" Which was a reply, of sorts, and one Heero understood. Duo saw him smile as Heero turned away to hide it. Before it was hidden by his shoulder, Duo wondering why Heero would try to hide it now when he had revealed so much else, Duo caught the glisten of a tear. He had made the perfect soldier, stone-man Heero Yuy, cry. Duo felt a lump in his own throat and it was the sight of that tear that kept him from killing Heero when the man took his pills, went to the toilet, and began flushing them down, while Duo screamed, shouted obscenities, and fought him tooth and nail with his weakened strength.


	12. Slices

Duo counted all of his pills yet again while Heero talked to him patiently and softly. Both of them were bruised and disheveled. Heero had a split lip and a black eye. Duo had bruised ribs and arms that felt as if Heero had almost pulled them out of the sockets. Sitting opposite each other, at the table in Duo's room, the pills and the pill bottles were between them. They had a truce of sorts, but it was tenuous at best. Duo's eyes were wild, manic, his mind already working out a plan to acquire more pills.   
  
"You have enough for full doses for a week," Heero was saying, "after that, I will have you reduce your dose gradually until all the pills are gone."   
  
"Two and a half weeks," Duo grated, fingers still busily counting and putting the pills into their correct bottles. "I have to visit the government doctors in two days. They'll prescribe me more."   
  
"You will need to be at a full dose when they examine you. We don't want them to get suspicious," Heero told him. "By the time of your next appointment, if Quatre doesn't convince them to allow his own doctors to treat you instead, you will be cured of your addiction-"   
  
"Or dead," Duo cut in.   
  
Heero nodded. A soldier through and through, he didn't soften a blow when there was a dangerous mission to perform. "Or dead," he agreed. "If you survive, we will need to get you off planet before they discover what we have done."   
  
"Well, Mr. Twenty Miracles Before Breakfast, Yuy," Duo snarled, "Unless you plan to chain me, I'm getting more pills."   
  
Heero reached out to touch a bottle. Duo slapped his hand away and pulled the bottles closer to himself, the frantic fight still fresh in his mind. Duo wasn't proud of his complete panic attack, but Heero had shocked him to his core. He had expected something, a miracle, from Heero, some training technique that would have allowed him to give up his pills without pain. The last thing he had expected was for Heero to do something as brutal as dumping and flushing half of his pills down the toilet.   
  
Heero was frowning, confused. "I thought that you had decided to trust me and to give up your pills?"   
  
"Not like that!" Duo snarled back, amethyst eyes flashing with fury.   
  
"Then, how?" Heero wondered. Duo suspected sarcasm and anger, but Heero's face showed only a raised eyebrow and a stony expression.   
  
Duo frowned. He struggled with pride and embarrassment and then he admitted. "I can't stop taking them... I can't decide to do that. I'll fight you, Heero. I'll call you every dirty name in the book and I'll probably try to hurt you again. You may not... you may not care about me by the time this is over with."   
  
Heero replied carefully, "Are you asking me to force you, Duo?"   
  
Duo half turned away sourly, but he was scooping his pills into his bag while he was doing it. "That's the problem, Heero. I can't 'ask' you to do that. I don't want to give up the pills. That's what addiction's all about."   
  
Heero nodded, not revealing what he was thinking. Instead, he simply began to speak as if Duo hadn't just spoken of refusing to give up the drugs, "We will need to start your training immediately. Strengthening exercises and physical control techniques will help you to regulate your body when the withdrawal symptoms begin to manifest themselves. You will also need to eat well for optimum functioning capability-"   
  
"I'm not a machine Heero," Duo retorted, "Just tell me that I have to do the impossible and leave it at that."   
  
"Not very precise," Heero complained.   
  
Duo smiled, but it was a thin veil over his anxiety. "I think it is," Duo shot back, but then shook his head wearily. "I'll still go along with your workout program, Heero, that much I can do, but... the rest I can't, and won't, promise. I know what I want and I know what I hope for, but, right now, the drugs are stronger than those things." He flexed his shoulders and winced. "Today, I have to bow out of the program though. The stress, and the wrestling match we just had, on a hard tile floor, kind of soured me for any other kind of fun."   
  
"I didn't hurt you?" Heero wondered sharply.   
  
Duo flexed his arms and shoulders again "They still work, but they hurt."   
  
"I was forced to immobilize you," Heero apologized, "I miscalculated. I didn't realize that you would attack me so forcefully. You are stronger than I imagined you to be."   
  
Duo grinned, "I bet you say that to all the cute, scrawny guys."   
  
"Hn," was Heero's dour reply, either not understanding the joke or not appreciating it. Duo thought that it might be both.   
  
"Is your eye all right?" Duo asked, a little more serious.   
  
"It will heal." Heero stood up, fingering his cut lip and his swollen eye as he added, "You were in a panic and not executing your attack in an effective manner."   
  
"Meaning; I fight like a girl when I have a druggie episode?" Duo's grin turned hard all in an instant. "First a compliment and now insults. You're a fickle guy, Heero."   
  
Heero thought about that, trying to determine Duo's mood. "You're frightened," he surmised at last.   
  
"Damn, fucking right, I'm frightened!" Duo exclaimed and then controlled himself with an effort, nostrils flaring as he lowered his voice and finished tightly, "I'm going to keep fighting you tooth and nail, Heero, and I won't be able to help myself. Don't make the mistake of underestimating me again. I might hit you with something more deadly than a toilet bowl brush next time."   
  
"Acknowledged," Heero replied ruefully and then, as if it were a part of the same conversation. "You should dress appropriately."   
  
"For what?" Duo wondered. "Is there a special out fit for loosing one's mind?"   
  
Heero shook his head impatiently. "No, for exercising."   
  
Duo frowned. "I just told you that-"   
  
"That you wished me to force you, since you are unable to make the decisions for improving your health on your own," Heero explained.   
  
"That's not what I meant," Duo replied irritably.   
  
"We have a limited amount of time," Heero argued. "You may be tired, but we cannot afford for you to lose a day resting."   
  
"Fuck you, Yuy, because rest is exactly what I'm going to do." Duo stood up, intending to go and lie down on the bed.   
  
Heero didn't touch him, but he did move to stand in front of Duo, tense, hands poised as if he were preparing to be attacked. Duo glared. Heero responded with an expression that displayed every ounce of concern and.... yes, love, he felt for Duo. Duo stared at that expression in fascination and disbelief. Torture, pure and simple, was ahead for Duo and he was finding it hard to force himself to begin it. Duo knew that. Heero was offering to strong arm him into the starting gate of the race to regain his life. Heero was giving him the choice to allow it.   
  
Duo shuddered, gritted his teeth, and then let go of his fear. A hard core of determination, and undefeated endurance, inside of Duo, wrapped up in his love for Heero and the desire to have a future with him, forced the words from his lips and set his body in motion. "I'll put on some shorts and gym shoes." He was rewarded by a warm smile from Heero and, Duo thought, he would have done a lot more than face physical difficulties to see that expression become more familiar to Heero and himself.   
  
It wasn't easy. Heero took Duo back to the mountain of rock, hooked straps to him, and simply told him to climb. Duo struggled, panted, saw the world go dim more than once, and cursed Heero whenever he could get a breath. Heero climbed beside him, not saying anything, helping and encouraging Duo by his strong presence and a steadying hand when he needed it. With that help, Duo made it a few yards up the sheer wall and then dropped back down, repelling with the rope. He still remembered his skill in that respect and he felt a flush of pleasure when Heero nodded approvingly.   
  
Duo tapped his chest, sweating and panting as Heero unbuckled him again from the straps, and said, "Shinigami is still in here. He just needs some more room to operate." Meaning his alter ego needed a better body.   
  
"We'll give him that room," Heero replied, as if talking about an imaginary God Of Death living inside of Duo was reasonable. "Weights next."   
  
"Shit!" Duo swore as he wiped his dripping brow with the back of a trembling hand. "I hate weights!"   
  
Heero led Duo through a door at the back of the echoing chamber. It led to an exercise room incredibly fitted out with every machine imaginable. It was strange that it was empty.   
  
"Doesn't anyone use this stuff?" Duo wondered as Heero helped him sit on a weight bench.   
  
"Quatre does," Heero said, "and I have on occasion. The staff is only allowed in during certain hours."   
  
"No wonder Quatre is so built," Duo replied as he stretched out on his back and looked up through the barbell supports at Heero. "He works out all of his post war syndrome in here." Heero frowned and Duo explained.   
  
"Come on, Heero, we all have it, right? We all have to deal with horrible memories of killing and destruction. Trowa flushes the bad feelings out by being a target for a knife thrower and sticking his head into the mouths of lions. Wu Fei, I'm sure, still practices his martial arts and kicks butt once in awhile when he can't hide in his studies any longer. I stayed drugged up and drowned myself in nightclubs and dance raves. You do impossible missions and pursue a cause. All of it keeps our minds from thinking about blood, guts, and dying people, and gives us that adrenaline rush we can never quiet get rid of the need for." Heero looked as if he wanted to avoid talking about the subject. His face just 'closed' and became that inscrutable mask Duo had been used to during the war, the one he had thought would never crack. Heero didn't reply. Instead, he put the lightest weights on the barbell and then stood at Duo's head and spotted him.   
  
Heero had changed into black, spandex shorts and a loose, white tank top that displayed his large, rounded shoulders to advantage. If Duo squinted, he could just make out the nubs of his nipples. It was strange, Duo thought, it was much easier to look at Heero and admire his body when Heero put on that soldier mask. For some reason, it dehumanized him and relieved Duo of the worry of bothering Heero or being judged by him. A face like that seemed impossible to offend or embarrass. A face like that didn't ask for the same considerations of any other man. Without the presence of the emotional Heero that Duo was still trying to believe in and come to terms with, it was easy to think more clearly, to consider the physical without getting knotted up about the emotional. Free to admire as he tried to lift the barbell, Duo came to a quick conclusion, one that had repeatedly come to him throughout his association with Heero Yuy. The man was absolutely hot!   
  
Heero asked, startling Duo, as if he were reading Duo's mind. "What is it like to be bisexual?"   
  
Duo almost dropped the barbell on himself. Heero steadied it automatically and Duo looked up past Heero's full, spandex covered crotch, past his washboard abs, his enticing nipples, up a strong neck, and into his handsome features. Cobalt blue eyes studied Duo as if he were a particularly intriguing puzzle.   
  
"Are you trying to distract me?" Duo asked in a voice that threatened to crack and embarrass him. "Do you think that weird conversation is going to keep me from realizing that I'm stretching out every puny muscle in my body and that I'm going to hurt like Hell later on?"   
  
Heero looked surprised and then he slowly shook his head. "I thought that we should learn more about each other. Lifting weights occupies the body, not the mind. If it is distracting to your concentration..."   
  
"Well," Duo replied, coughed nervously, and then admitted, "Piloting a Gundam makes you good at multi tasking, but I'm way the hell out of shape..."   
  
"Consider your reply then," Heero suggested. "You can answer my question when you rest."   
  
"What specifically do you want to know?" Duo asked.   
  
"Several things," Heero told him. "My first question is, what about women do you find sexually attractive?"   
  
"Okay... Let me think and I'll get back to you," Duo replied, feeling a blush sting his face. He lifted the weights again and silence reigned except for his grunts and panting breaths.   
  
"Enough?" Heero asked after three lifts.   
  
Duo thankfully gave the weights into Heero's hands. "Are you that eager for an answer?" he wondered as Heero put the weights into their stand.   
  
"Curious," Heero corrected. "You accused me of not knowing you. I said the same to you about me. We need to rectify our uninformed situation."   
  
Duo relaxed, trying to get his breath. When he could think clearly again, he had a reply ready. "Well, it's going to sound sleazy."   
  
"Sleazy?" Heero echoed.   
  
Duo looked away and narrowed his eyes on the ceiling, finding it hard to look at Heero when he replied, "Yeah, well, it's not real high minded, the reason I like women. It's..." Duo scratched at his scalp. Partly to relieve an inch caused by his sweat and his own embarrassment. "I like between their legs. It just makes me warm all over... no, I'm not sure why. It's not even about doing them there, or anything. I just have this urge to..." Duo winced.   
  
"What?" Heero prompted.   
  
"Stick my face there and just stay for awhile," Duo managed to force out. "Stupid, isn't it? Guess I'm just a pervert or something. I've heard other guys talk. They like breasts and asses, mostly. As far as the whole feminine versus masculine thing though, I lean towards guys every time."   
  
"I feel protective when I am with women," Heero revealed suddenly and Duo looked up at him and saw that Heero was distant and thoughtful. "I have never been sexually attracted to any part of them, though."   
  
"Oh," Duo replied. "Then you are a hundred percent gay?" When Heero nodded, Duo asked, "and you're not a virgin?"   
  
"Yes to the first question and no to the second."   
  
"Oh." Duo was sounding stupid in his own ears. "So chalk one up for you, you have experience. I've come close, but, I'm afraid my only experience is some x-rated vids."   
  
"How do you know that you are bisexual then?" Heero was looking at him intently then, worry in his voice. "Sometimes, with some of my sexual partners, they were curious and excited until we tried to initiate the actual act, then they reacted negatively and changed their minds. They discovered that they didn't want to experience sex with another male in reality."   
  
"Oh," Duo winced and decided not to say that word again. "Well, I may be stunted physically to the point where sex is a bit of a non-starter with me, but," Duo found himself staring at Heero's crotch, the enticing curve and line of his genitals beneath. "I definitely get excited by men, Heero, so don't worry."   
  
Heero was quiet, digesting the new data. Duo imagined Heero placing it in his carefully labeled mental file; Duo Maxwell.   
  
"So," Duo asked, proud that he had thought of another word besides, 'oh'. "Is this a Heero Yuy way of asking if I want to have sex with you?"   
  
"Yes," Heero replied simply and waited.   
  
"Oh." Damn! Duo thought, grimaced, and then said more calmly than he felt. "I ,uh, well, I'm not a normal guy right now, Heero. Before I started taking the drugs, I probably would have laid men or women by the Gundam load. I had a pretty randy libido. Right now though, I put myself to sleep." He went on quickly, hating himself, hating to have to make that kind of declaration, but knowing that, if he didn't Heero was going to think that Duo was rejecting him when he said no. "I'm still a virgin for a couple of reasons, that being the biggest."   
  
"What are the others?" Heero pushed.   
  
Duo rubbed at his sore arms and sighed. "People have always wanted to do it with me for the wrong reasons. I'm not going to let some woman tell everyone that Duo Maxwell did her or have some guy shout to every news vid that he stuck it in my ass."   
  
Heero frowned at that crudeness and Duo took note of it. Heero had admitted before that he wasn't experienced in relationships, only sex. It seemed odd that he would be uncomfortable about it.   
  
"I wouldn't do that," Heero promised firmly. "It wouldn't..." he searched for the words to express his strong emotions and convictions. "It wouldn't be just sex between us. I think it will be much different than what I have had before. "   
  
Duo stared and then, feeling a glow start in the vicinity of his heart, he said. "I know, Heero. I don't have anything to go on, but, I think it has to be that way, too."   
  
Duo reached up to take hold of the barbells again. He smiled lopsidedly, trying to lighten the serious mood. "When I'm off the drugs, maybe we'll find out together what it's like." He began to lift the barbell, staring pointedly at Heero's crotch. "Until then, and before the real pain kicks in, I think I'll enjoy this exercise the most. It gives me a good view of part of my goal." He smirked.   
  
Heero looked down into Duo's eyes and his hands closed over Duo's, stopping him from continuing. "Why wait?"   
  
Duo frowned bitterly. "Don't make me keep repeating it, Heero. I already told you I can't-"   
  
"It's not just sex," Heero repeated. He leaned under the bar and Duo suddenly found soft, warm lips devouring his own. "Say Yes," Heero begged around his kiss, "There might not be another opportunity."   
  
Heero broke the kiss but his eyes were devouring Duo as thoroughly as his lips had. Duo felt weary, sick to his stomach from his physical efforts, and sore in every muscle. The drugs were in full force, keeping him lethargic, keeping him docile, keeping him almost non sexed... almost.   
  
"Yes," Duo replied, doubts filling is head, but not strongly enough to disagree with Heero. There might not be another chance, Duo thought. He might die. Even if he couldn't do anything with Heero sexually, there were other kinds of closeness.   
  
Duo sat up. He said softly. "We aren't a couple yet by a long shot," he told Heero. "We still have a lot of ground between us until that happens, but we may never get the time to do anything about that. I may not know who you are, Heero Yuy, but... I know I love you. That doesn't make much sense, maybe, but... we don't have time for sense either." Heero nodded resolutely.   
  
Duo said, as Heero helped him off of the bench and they began walking towards the door, "Damned if I'll die a virgin, anyway!"   
  
Heero laughed, but it was dark and wild; a soldier's laugh. They knew all about death, had lived with it as a constant companion for years. They both could appreciate Duo's irreverence when faced with it now. Heero's hand slid along Duo's hip. Duo had to lean on him, limping, but Heero was warm and his hard body seemed to have the ability to soften against Duo, emanating an erotic invitation that was almost subliminal.   
  
It could have been easily intimidating because of Duo's inexperience, but Heero wasn't overbearing or grasping. He allowed Duo to rest against him, he didn't pull him close. It was an unspoken cue to Duo that he could change his mind and say no, if he chose. Heero wasn't going to force anything on him. Knowing that, Duo's uncertainty lost ground to his deeper need to find out what Heero was like body to body, what it was like to have someone touch him who cared so much, and to, finally, experience a part of his life that, had, since the confusing grope session with Milliardo Peacecraft that night so long ago, been closed to him.   
  
"I want you bad, Heero!" Duo whispered hoarsely and he saw Heero smile, his dark features glowing with pleasure as he reached for the door to open it.   
  
Someone on the other side of the door opened it first. Wu Fei stood there, dressed in a Nehru jacket of light green, black silk, Chinese pants, and soft, black ankle boots. He was as bald as an egg, his noble features carrying it off handsomely. His black eyes were like pools of ink under his scowling, thin eyebrows and those eyes took in Duo and Heero, and the way they were holding on to one another, in a sharp glance. His next words were clipped and irritated.   
  
"I was led to believe that there was an emergency needing my skills," Wu Fei grated. "If I have been misled-"   
  
Duo looked at Heero angrily and stepped back from him, the mood suddenly gone cold. "What's going on, Heero? Why did you call him?"   
  
Heero nodded greeting to Wu Fei respectfully as he replied, "Wu Fei is going to save your life."


	13. Dragon

Duo tried to stay alert. He leaned on one fist at the large, round table, the aftermath of a meal stacked at the center. Wu Fei was leaning back in his chair, sipping hot tea. Heero was next to him, talking in low tones as if Duo wasn't meant to be a part of the conversation. Duo, sitting across from them, was quickly losing his battle with his exhausted body.   
  
The small state room they had chosen to eat and talk in, had been filled with servants long enough to set out the meal, but, after that, they had been left with coffee, tea, and simmering moods. Wu Fei had remained sour and uncommunicative throughout the meal and Heero had tried to fill him in on the details of Duo's condition with the air of someone waiting to be rejected out of hand. Duo had remained absolutely quiet, bewildered by Wu Fei's presence, confused by Heero's anxious attitude towards him, and still angered that Wu Fei had interrupted them at a crucial moment, a moment when their undefined relationship might have gained a sexual facet.   
  
Duo's eyes slid closed. He didn't know how long he was asleep before a hand touched his shoulder very gently. Duo pried sticky eyes back open with an effort and found Wu Fei staring at him very close. He was crouching by Duo's chair, one hand on the arm.   
  
"Hm?" Duo managed and sat up straighter. He felt muscles scream at him, having stiffened up while he had been asleep. He winced and hissed, rubbing at his shoulders. "Did I miss something?" Duo wondered.   
  
"Only Yuy trying to convince me that you can learn a year's worth of high level, deep meditation techniques in the span of a few days," Wu Fei replied, but his tone was soft and his irritation seemed to have left him. His black eyes looked.... concerned. Remembering their of times stormy partnerships during the war, Duo began to wonder if he was really awake.   
  
"Did you really come all the way from L4 on Heero's say so?" Duo wondered, still trying to wake up fully. Heero poured him some coffee, noticing his difficulty, and Duo took it and drank it gratefully, his eyes never leaving Wu Fei's.   
  
Wu Fei shot an angry look at Heero. "He didn't trust my honor enough to explain. He simply told me that my skills were needed."   
  
"What's honor got to do with it?" Duo wondered, puzzled.   
  
Wu Fei seemed surprised by that question. "You saved my life on occasion. We shared confinement and near death. We were comrades fighting for a great and noble goal. I haven't forgotten those times. I haven't forgotten my obligations. Honor dictates that I respond when I'm told that an old comrade is in need." He frowned. "I'm not a complete bastard, Maxwell."   
  
Duo didn't know what to say. He was grateful and yet he felt trepidation too, not sure what the man could do for him except be yet another witness to his messy, painful death. "It's not going to be pretty."   
  
"And you're not going to be strong, mentally, for much longer," Wu Fei agreed incite fully. "We must begin at once, before you lose the ability to be rational."   
  
Duo felt angry, his weariness short circuiting his gratitude all at once. "Well, you sound like Heero now, but I'm not backing down this time. I'm going to bed. I'm a skinny weakling, Wu Fei, just what you hate the most, and this skinny weakling has just had all of his reserves burned up in Yuy torture before you showed up. I'm not topping it off by enduring Chang Wu Fei's patented martial arts, mental mojo program, today too."   
  
Wu Fei studied Duo intently and then he nodded gently, eyes going soft and understanding, something Duo had definitely not expected. "You will need to be rested and alert when we begin. What is the best time of the day for you to be in that condition?"   
  
"Late morning," Duo replied, stunned that Wu Fei wasn't sneering at him, or tossing one of his usual, 'weaklings', diatribe at Duo's head.   
  
"Then you will reserve that time, and most of the early afternoon, to my lessons," Wu Fei instructed him.   
  
Duo looked at Heero, who was looking pleased and relieved. "If you make a decision like this again, without asking me...!" Duo snapped at him, "First the plane trip to Quatre's, the pills, and now this! I may be stunted, Heero, but I am an adult who can make decisions!"   
  
Heero looked contrite suddenly, but he wasn't daunted. "You've told me what you want," he said. "You've also told me, and shown me, that you can't reach that goal by making the right decisions. Tell me again, Duo... Tell me that you really do want to go through with this."   
  
"Of course I don't!" Duo snarled, hands gripping his chair arms. "I'm a lazy ass, druggie! I'd much rather be home playing video games and waiting for the pizza to show up!"   
  
Wu Fei said quietly, face pensive, "You say that, but it isn't true."   
  
Duo stared at him, narrowed his eyes as if to argue that, but then deflated in his chair. "Yeah, you're right, it isn't, but at least I felt in control doing those things. I can't help wanting that again and Heero, you are not helping me get over that feeling by leaving me out of the loop in decisions concerning me!"   
  
Wu Fei asked point blank. "My discipline won't work unless you are committed to learning it. Once learned, it won't help you if you are not focused, committed, determined in your goal. Your enemies have attacked you, not by fighting bravely in open battle, but in the cowardly act of poisoning you slowly. They want you to die like a dog. You have to decide to be a dragon instead and not let them succeed."   
  
"I feel like shit!" Duo exclaimed and hid behind his bangs by ducking his head.   
  
Heero came around the table in concern. "I'll take you back to your room if you're feeling-"   
  
Wu Fei stopped him with a gesture. "Why do you feel that way?" he asked Duo.   
  
"Everyone's helping me," Duo replied guiltily. "I didn't think much about you guys or even wondered how you were getting along after the war. I know some of you had trouble, well, if I can believe the news vids, but... I didn't run to the rescue or anything. I could have done something, at least made a phone call..."   
  
"Do you wish to atone for that?" Wu Fei wondered.   
  
Duo shrugged uncomfortably. "I guess, yeah."   
  
"You can't do that if you're dead," Wu Fei told him brutally. "Survive and pay your debt to us, for helping you and for not helping us when we needed you. As for myself, I ask only for you to seek revenge on the ones who did this to you. I ask that you bring them to Justice. Men who do such cowardly things should not be allowed to triumph."   
  
"Wu Fei," Heero growled, not liking Wu Fei's words at all.   
  
Somehow, Wu Fei understood what motivated Duo, or, perhaps, it was understandable. Wu Fei had fought during the war for revenge too, or 'justice' as he had called it. Heero had touched on it, but had left it alone, not believing, maybe, that it was a stronger motivation than the feelings they had for one another and the need to survive and be together. That way of thinking was a mistake, Duo knew suddenly. Heero's love would forgive Duo if he backed down, refused treatment, and went back to enduring his captivity. Revenge and justice weren't forgiving at all. Revenge, especially, demanded it's due and it didn't accept anything less.   
  
"I can't let those bastards win," Duo said quietly from the shelter of his hair. "And I can't make things right with you guys from a pine box six feet under." Duo thought about all the physical and mental trauma he had endured for revenge during the war. There had been torture. There had been terrible confinement and wounds suffered that still ached in body and soul. He had survived it, suffered it, and come out on the other side of it with Oz defeated, his ghosts satisfied, and at least some justice served. Now that he was soon to be the ghost, Duo thought, why couldn't his determination, to make the ones who had done that to him pay, be stronger?   
  
"I'll tell you what I told Heero," Duo replied at last. "As long as I'm in my right mind, I'll cooperate. I want to survive this. I don't want to be an addict. I don't want to die slowly and have those bastards laughing over my grave without a care in the world. Problem is, though, I won't BE in my right mind for long, Hell, sometimes I'm not too stable right now, am I Heero?" Heero nodded, jaw tightening.   
  
Wu Fei said firmly, "Heero spoke earlier of forcing you to be treated. I will not force you, Maxwell. You wish to believe that the drugs that are killing you control you and take away your ability to decide your life. That, I will show you, is a lie. You will not be able to use it as an excuse when we work together."   
  
Duo didn't believe that for a minute. He smirked, but it was an angry, dark, and bitter expression. "Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, Wu- Man, but, when you see old Duo Maxwell not get his pills, you'll be singing a different tune."   
  
Wu Fei straightened and looked down at Duo sternly. "Lessons begin at ten o' clock tomorrow morning. If you are not at my room by that time, I will be on the next shuttle flight back to L4. You complained of not being able to make decisions. That is a decision, Maxwell."   
  
Wu Fei turned and left the room with the assured, quiet bearing of a man used to getting his way. Heero sighed and looked at Duo as if he were disappointed. Maybe he was. Duo shivered and could find only one word to encompass everything he was feeling. "Crap!"   
  
"We could try to have sex again. That might make you feel better," Heero said as he came to stand behind Duo, touching Duo's shoulders lightly.   
  
"I didn't know that you had such a sense of humor, Yuy," Duo shot back sarcastically. He tilted his chin back and looked up at Heero. The man was frowning ever so slightly and Duo realized that it hadn't been a joke. He should have known better. "You are such a weirdo!" Duo sighed. "Here a huge decision was just made, I'm handing myself over to Wu Fei. Let me repeat that, Wu Fei! and you're already past it and thinking about..." Duo left his chair and stood dejectedly. "Sorry, Heero, but I can't even work up enough libido to stare at your crotch right now."   
  
Heero thought about that, thinking of the weight machine, probably, and how Duo had said how much he liked it. "Sex relieves stress," he replied at last. "It was the only reason I allowed for it during the war. A soldier can't function without relieving stress periodically."   
  
Duo flushed. "You were doing that during the war, screwing guys to relax, and you didn't think to ask me?"   
  
Duo turned and saw Heero's tight, annoyed expression. Heero was a romantic. Duo saw it clearly just then. The perfect soldier had a poet somewhere under that granite like exterior. Duo knew what he was going to say before he said it. "I wanted more than sex from you. I wanted all of you, mind, body,... heart," he added, stumbling at such an emotional revelation. "Knowing that, I knew that I had to keep a distance between us. No entanglements."   
  
"No entanglements," Duo agreed. He fiddled with his braid and then tossed it behind his shoulder as he confronted Heero, admitting, with teeth gritted in a vicious smile," I on the other hand, given the slightest encouragement, would have been doing it with you like rabbits and to Hell with 'entanglements'."   
  
Heero stared, wide eyed.   
  
Duo reached out and touched Heero's tank top. He knotted it into his hands as if he wanted to tear it off and said bitterly, "I was a virgin because too many people wanted to fuck my head as well as my body, Heero. Too many users, too little opportunity where I came from. The sweeper ships weren't exactly full of gentle, accommodating lovers just wanting a little stress relief. Most of them were like hounds after fresh meat and I... well, I knew I didn't want to be the fresh meat that they tore up between them. After that, well, I was on my own in my Gundam and, even after we all hooked up, there wasn't much chance for whoopee during a war, even with five horny teenagers locked up together in a safe house." Duo watched Heero's nipples press against the fabric as his hands pulled it even tighter. "What I'm trying to say, Heero, is that I'm willing, I just haven't been able. I know where it goes and how to do it, I just haven't had a chance to implement the knowledge with anyone but my right hand, if you know what I mean."   
  
"You are not shy," Heero concluded.   
  
Duo smirked. "No. You probably spent as much time as I have crammed into a cabin with a troop of other guys during training and the war. You get rid of embarrassment and prudishness pretty quick when they're almost doing it on top of you in a bunk only a foot away from your own."   
  
Heero nodded, remembering. "So, I know I look like a kid still, but you don't have to treat me like one, k?"   
  
Heero nodded again and then looked contrite. "I'm sorry. You are so small next to me, Duo. I don't want to offend you... or insult you, but I feel protective and unsure when I am with you. You seem so young... It feels wrong, almost, to-"   
  
"Get more than G- rated?" Duo finished angrily. "Yeah, well, I guess I can see why you would think that. Kind of brings me back full circle to why the Hell you would want to have sex with me in the first place. I know you said it was because love is blind, but you're going to have to deal with what I got sooner or later. You may be a romantic, but, I'm not. I know reality is going to stick it's big nose in sooner or later."   
  
"I thought that you didn't lie," Heero replied, and Duo was given that warm, startling smile that Heero seemed to be saving just for when he was the most off guard. "Duo, you don't have to be afraid of being inexperienced. You don't have to be tough. You don't have to forget about love and tenderness to try to please me. I did not mean that it seems wrong to have sex with you. It seems wrong to rush and to treat you as if you were just another fuck, I meant."   
  
Duo felt a blush, but he joked. "Uh-oh! Heero said a bad word!"   
  
Heero snorted in amusement. "Don't try to fool yourself into believing that 'just sex' is all right in order to please me," Heero continued seriously. "You deserve more and so do I." His hand trailed along Duo's body sensuously. "You are too thin. Your bones do stick out alarmingly. You do look exhausted, pale, and unmatured-"   
  
"You're going some where with this?" Duo cut in sourly, but he was mesmerized by Heero's soft touch along his side as well.   
  
Heero leaned close, his breath warm on Duo's face. "You're beauty shines through, Duo, it can't be hidden. It glows through your skin and through your eyes. You have a mature beauty and a mature mind, not a child's. You are very... masculine, and I find that very attractive, indeed."   
  
"It's all attitude then?" Duo grinned, only half believing him, but amazed by Heero's loving words. It didn't seem possible that they had come from a man who had mainly stuck to three words throughout the war; 'hn', 'baka', and 'shut up'. "Well, I do have a lot of attitude, I guess," Duo added self deprecatingly.   
  
Heero kissed him, just a brush against his cheek as he said, "Yes, you do."   
  
Duo broke the mood by yawning hugely. Embarrassed, he muttered, "To bad we can only talk about sex and romance. I need to sleep Heero. I don't think I can even make it back to my room on my own two feet."   
  
"Lean on me," Heero told him and hooked an arm around Duo's thin waist to help him, "I will show you that love isn't synonymous with sex, Duo."   
  
Duo was nervous, but he smiled and felt a deep thrill in the vicinity of his heart. He had never been given the chance to love. He didn't know the first thing about it. "Finally!" Duo sighed as they limped back to his room, "A lesson I want to learn!"   
  
Heero sat Duo down on the bed and then knelt to take off his shoes. "Stink alert!" Duo chuckled and Heero grimaced, agreeing.   
  
"You need to shower," Heero said.   
  
Duo started to lean back into the bed. It felt as if it were calling him and reaching out for him. All he wanted to do was to close his eyes, sink into the gel mattress, and forget about his rankness from exercising. Now that he wasn't distracted, he wonder how the other two had been able to sit through a meal with him without a protest.   
  
Heero caught Duo by the elbow and kept him seated. "Shower," Heero insisted.   
  
"Okay, okay!" Duo mumbled, yawned again, and stood up. He swayed on his feet, regained his balance, and staggered for the bathroom. When he felt Heero following him, he felt a flush hot under his skin. He wanted to protest, but they both knew that passing out in the shower was a real possibility.   
  
"Just, uh, just stand by the door, okay, Heero?" Duo asked. "Don't look or anything."   
  
Heero raised an eyebrow. "I wasn't intending to try and engage you in sex, Duo, I was only concerned for your safety."   
  
Duo blinked and tried to think of an excuse that didn't include, 'I hate my body and I don't want anyone, especially the guy I love, seeing it.' he ended up simply saying, "Okay." and felt like an idiot. He had tried to establish that he wasn't shy, that he wasn't a prude, that he was ready for sex, at least mentally, and that Heero was to treat him accordingly. Now that Heero was treating him that way, intending to go into the bathroom and help him shower, Duo was mentally back tracking and feeling flustered and ashamed because of it.   
  
Heero said thoughtfully, "There are dynamics to this that I was unaware of."   
  
Duo blinked, coming out of his own thoughts abruptly. "Huh?"   
  
Heero searched for words to explain, "With another man it would be simple. I would either treat him as a sexual partner until we were both relieved of our needs, or his sex wouldn't be of any consequence and I would treat him accordingly. Being with you, feeling the things that I do for you, I find myself unable to be objective and unmoved. I think you are having the same difficulty?" he frowned, continuing even when Duo didn't respond. "A shower cannot be simply a shower, even if we don't engage in any activity other than bathing you." He struggled and then finished uncomfortably, "With you, there is an intensity to everything, a response from within me that I can't describe. Every one of my senses, all of my emotions and thoughts, center on you when ever we are together. I don't know how to proceed Duo. Emotionally and physically, I am knowledgeable and experienced, but interacting in a relationship is unknown territory for me. You will have to tell me what I should do and what you wish to happen or not happen."   
  
Duo raked his fingers through his hair in frustration. "This should be easy!" he lamented. "We're both guys! We both want each other. We should just be able to get each other off, grin, and start the torture at ten tomorrow morning. It's so much more complicated than that, though, and I'm just as confused about it, maybe even more so, than you are, Heero! No, I don't want you to see me naked. No, I don't want you in the shower with me. Why? I don't even want to tell you, but you can probably guess."   
  
Heero nodded, jaw working, and then he replied, "You are dissatisfied with your body. You think that I will be critical of it. You are also afraid, that if something sexual were to happen, that you would be unable to perform the act."   
  
Duo ducked his head. He couldn't reply to that. Heero was blunt. He had always dealt in bald facts. Duo couldn't be that way. His personality was more fragile than Heero's. Instead, Duo said, "I have a lot on my plate that has to be dealt with before I can get my head straight about 'us'. I don't really know what I want or what I want you to do or not do. I want to rush it. I wanted you for so long... but... I don't even know why this is so hard! Why I can't just let go and HAVE you! If I don't know anything else, I at least know that I DO want that!"   
  
Heero warmed to that, but he didn't take advantage of the revelation. Instead, he took a verbal step back. "I feel it too," he replied. "It isn't just sex. It's..." he met Duo's eyes and Duo saw a flaring intensity that made Heero's next words the most important words in Duo's life, "It's giving the other person half of yourself. " He seemed relieved now that he had defined it, "You can't do that lightly, no without complete faith in the other person."   
  
"And we have so many blank spaces to fill in yet," Duo agreed, nodding and feeling relieved himself. In the gym room, he had felt that time was short, and that he might not survive to have a real relationship, a real 'first time' with tenderness and passion. He had been willing to just have sex with Heero because of that fear. Heero's words were making him rethink that. Sex wasn't what he really wanted and it would have meant nothing if they had gone through with it. Heero may have given half of his soul to him, but Duo was still clutching his and uncertain about giving it up, even though he knew that he loved Heero. The life he had led up until then didn't make that kind of trust come easy.   
  
Duo grimaced, wanting to retreat back to safe ground, uncomfortable with the emotions flaring between them because he was still so unprepared to deal with them and everything else in his life just then. "Rain check," Duo said and Heero looked puzzled. "Heero Yuy is entitled to try and have a relationship with one, Duo Maxwell, after said Duo Maxwell gets his shit together."   
  
Heero smiled only slightly, sensing a deeper, painful, meaning to that flippant announcement. Duo might die. They might not get the chance for a life together. Duo was willing to risk it, to hope for something more precious than a handful of minutes of sex, with perhaps an embarrassing failure on his part, and maybe some resentment and bad feelings afterwards. It was a declaration of how Duo felt for Heero and Heero didn't misunderstand that.   
  
"We will make it through this," Heero told him, as if he could make it true by sheer force of belief. "We will have our chance."   
  
Duo nodded, wishing he could be as certain as Heero, as he went into the bathroom to shower alone.


	14. Knots

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Very graphic, violent, a lot of language. It gets rough here, so watch out if you are sensitive.

"Filthy, little Gundam Pilot!" A steel toed boot caught Duo in the ribs. They cracked. Another boot to the ribs, and they broke. The ugly face of an Oz soldier thrust itself through the red haze covering Duo's sight. Eyes bulging with fury and hate, teeth gritted in a snarl, the man's big hand was twisted into Duo' bangs, forcing the retching, whimpering Duo to face him. Duo had the satisfaction of vomiting right into his tormentor's face. The men who were holding Duo, pinning his arms up behind his back, exclaimed and held him tighter, knowing the consequences of that act as well as Duo, and eager to see punishment carried out. The ugly, Oz soldier ran a hand over his face, pulling off some of the vomit and flinging it back onto Duo. Tightening his grip on Duo's bangs, he pulled a long dress dagger from his belt. It glinted as coldly as his eyes as he drew it back, clearly intending to slice open Duo's throat.   
  
"Halt!" The voice of Zechs Marquis, Milliardo Peacecraft, brought everyone up short. The masked officer of Oz strode forward like a furious panther ready to spring on it's prey. "This is not an interrogation! This is an execution! You men are on report!" his commanding voice bellowed.   
  
The ugly soldier growled and began to protest, his knife hand lowering. Duo used that moment to kick upward. Catching the man's wrist on his toe, he forced both wrist and razor sharp knife violently upward. His captors yanked him backwards, but it was already too late for 'Soldier Ugly'. The knife caught him across the face in a shower of blood.   
  
"Shhh, that's the past, Duo," a firm, soothing voice said in Duo's ear, "You're dreaming."   
  
"But it hurts!" Duo whimpered to the voice.   
  
"Spasm from stressed muscles. Remember the exercises, Duo. That's why you feel pain."   
  
The voice twitched Duo out of the nightmare with reason and a calm tone. A comforting hand smoothed along Duo's cheek. It soothed him into deeper sleep and, this time, there weren't any nightmares. When Duo finally awoke, it was to morning light and the strange sensation of someone carefully combing his hair.   
  
Duo started and half sat up, automatically defensive. When he saw that it was Heero, he froze in consternation. The man was seated in a chair by the bed, hunched over the loose strands of Duo's chestnut hair in his lap, face serious and intent. "What...?" was all Duo could manage hoarsely.   
  
Heero looked uncertain, straightening, but not letting go of Duo's hair. "You showered and then fell asleep right afterwards," he explained. "You were tossing and turning all night. Your hair is a large knot now. I thought that I would help you by combing it out, otherwise you might not have time to eat breakfast before meeting with Wu Fei."   
  
"Breakfast?" Duo took the comb from Heero's hand and slowly pulled his hair out of Heero's grasp, his mind trying to come to terms with the elapsed time. "I really slept that long?!"   
  
Heero's hands were still open, as if he were disappointed by Duo taking the task away from him. "You were exhausted. I thought that it was prudent to let you re- establish energy reserves in preparation for today."   
  
Duo rubbed at his eyes and then took a deep breath to clear his head. "I guess I needed it." He clutched the comb tighter and narrowed amethyst eyes at Heero. "Were you here all night?"   
  
"I slept at the foot of the bed," Heero replied." You were having nightmares and periodically thrashing about. I was worried that you would harm yourself-"   
  
"You slept with me?!" Duo demanded in consternation and embarrassment.   
  
Heero stared at Duo for a moment, maybe trying to understand Duo's reaction. "You collapsed," he explained. "Your blood pressure and pulse were not very stable. I thought that it was wise to monitor you." Heero paused and then said, puzzled, "We've slept together on several occasions during the war, and sat watch when one of us was wounded. Why does it upset you now?"   
  
Duo found it hard to explain that his strong attraction to Heero made the idea of the man sleeping on the same bed with him far too exciting, so he passed off his discomfort as something else. "Uh, well, nobody has tried to uh, take care of me since then. I guess I've become a bit of a hermit."   
  
Heero gave him a small smile as he stood up and stretched. Duo could see the tattoo of the tiger, in his mind's eye, stretching as well. Two tigers readying themselves for the day.   
  
"You're smiling," Duo said around a yawn. Heero's stretch was contagious. Duo found himself mimicking it without thought. Suddenly, he had to bite down on his hand to stifle a cry, tortured muscles coming to life with pain. Heero, his back turned, didn't notice.   
  
"I was considering ways of making you comfortable with my close presence," Heero was explaining.   
  
Duo felt tears of pain in his eyes. He knew that his face was red with the exertion of not crying out. When he lowered his hand, panting a little, he saw that he had left teeth marks in his skin; the price of keeping his pride. "A mission?" he managed to reply, not really caring what he said, just filling the space that Heero had left for him.   
  
Heero grunted. "Missions are cold, calculating things," he replied as he walked to the window. It was glowing with morning light. He squinted against it as he looked outside. "That's not how I wish to treat you."   
  
"Thanks," Duo breathed, wondering how he was going to get out of bed, but knowing he needed to get his pills. He thought quickly. "Heero? I'm really hungry. Could you go and get breakfast for me? I hate to impose, but the servants are probably pretty slow. I'm sure that they have other things to do, besides fetch and a carry for ex pilots."   
  
"Of course." Heero turned from the window, appraising Duo with a quick flick of his dark, blue eyes. Duo saw him frown, but then saw him reconsider questioning Duo, maybe thinking that food might correct whatever he saw wrong with him. "I'll go at once."   
  
"Thanks!" Duo gave him a smile and tried to keep it from being shaky. "I really appreciate it. Uhm.... eggs, bacon, and some toast... coffee, of course: black."   
  
Heero wasn't in the mood to be that indulgent. "Protein drink, high protein/carbohydrate bars, juice, multi vitamins-"   
  
"And coffee: black," Duo cut in, stressing it.   
  
Heero gave another of his small smiles, relenting that much. "Coffee: black," he agreed.   
  
Duo was relieved. He needed at least that much, besides the pills, to stay normal until he was settled into the routine that Wu Fei and Heero were about to start him on. When Heero left to get breakfast, Duo suddenly knew how hard that routine was going to be as he climbed from the bed. Shaking and gasping with the pain of stressed muscles, Duo made his way to his duffel bag and the table, his chances of surviving, in his own mind, beginning to dwindle.   
  
Duo's pill ritual kicked in. He set the bottles out and went through the motions after pouring himself a cup of water from the pitcher at the center of the table. The ritual had an edge of desperation this time. He found himself eying the contents of the bottles and it was all he could do not to take all of the pills out of their bottles and recheck how long he had until they were gone. He reminded himself that he had a doctor appointment soon and, if he chose to abandon everything, including the man he loved, he could get more pills then.   
  
As Duo put his pills back, and sat limply in his chair, waiting for them to take effect, he searched inside of himself. He wondered if he really had the strength to go through with kicking his pill habit and reclaiming his life. It didn't seem, at first, that there was anything within him that told Duo for certain that he, Duo Maxwell, would go through with it or die trying. Instead, he found weakness, fear, and even a bit of cowardice. It didn't surprise him very much. He had spent four years having his fun loving, brash, and daring psyche ground under the heel of government officials, a lying press, and medication.   
  
Finally, Duo picked out bits of the nightmare that he had suffered; the ugly Oz soldier, his broken ribs, his defiance in the face of death, and his willingness to act even when he knew that torture could have been the least of his reward for such an action. He was still that person, Duo told himself, he was still willing to stick it in the eye of the bad guy and damn the consequences. He had to be, Duo thought with some desperation, he didn't think that he would want to go on living if he weren't, if he had been completely crushed in body and spirit to the point where any man could screw his life and get away with it.   
  
"Just wait," Duo muttered. "You are going to get yours, you bastards, and I'm going to do everything in my power to give it to you!" He decided then and there that it was going to become his mantra until he made it true. It was going to be his whip when he failed, his hand up when he faltered, and his promise he intended to keep.   
  
By the time that Heero returned with breakfast, Duo was relaxed and ready, his body not hurting so much and the usual weariness manageable. Grimacing at the healthy food, Duo drank his black coffee first.   
  
"So," Duo said in way of conversation. "What do Trowa and Quatre actually think about all of this now? I mean, it's bad enough that the notorious Duo Maxwell is staying with them and generating all kinds of conjecture, but now Wu Fei the eccentric scholar and Heero Yuy, savior of Relena Peacecraft and Earth, are here was well. The staff must be making some good money selling the story to the news vids."   
  
Heero wasn't naive. He knew that having all of the ex-Gundam pilots together would make the government nervous. "Quatre has let it be known that he has invited all of us to his estate to celebrate our contribution to the war and continued peace. There will be a party and a chance for the news to be given photos and false stories. Quatre has also officially 'discovered' your illness and petitioned the government to allow his doctors to treat you."   
  
"They will, of course, not believe any of that or allow Quatre to take me out of their hands," Duo added sourly. He picked up a health bar, eyed it dubiously, and then bit into it. After taking the pills, his stomach often became unsettled. He was pleasantly surprised when the bland, slightly sweetened bar, didn't make him nauseous.   
  
"That is the most likely outcome," Heero replied regretfully, "Which is why we must move quickly before they can lodge a protest at our reunion."   
  
Five highly trained individuals didn't need Gundams to overthrow governments, Duo thought wryly. He drank some of the protein drink, made a face, and put it down. Pouring some of his coffee into it, despite Heero's small sound of protest, he swirled it around until it was mixed. Taking a sip of the coffee/ protein drink mixture, Duo sighed, "That's better." He looked at Heero critically. "I realize that this is Quatre and Trowa's home, but they could go some where else. They aren't going to be much help in 'curing' me."   
  
"By lending you his official presence," Heero explained, "Quatre protects you from the government. Quatre is a very powerful and well known person. They couldn't move against him without protests from all branches of society. Trowa is his own man, but very loyal to Winner. I don't believe that he would leave knowing that there might be danger."   
  
"So we all sit together like a bunch of dumb ducks!" Duo grumbled as he stood up. "I don't feel very worth it, Heero."   
  
"I know," Heero replied sympathetically, "Your self esteem is minimal."   
  
"Big surprise, right?" Duo mocked and went to change his clothes. He had managed to throw on a pair of cotton shorts before collapsing the night before, but Duo was uncomfortable at the thought of having Wu Fei see that much of him. He opted for black, cotton pants instead and a white, short sleeve t- shirt.   
  
"Time to go to the first torture of the day?" Duo wondered as he finished braiding his hair. Flipping it back over his shoulder carelessly, he faced Heero resolutely. "I'm ready to go if it is."   
  
Heero looked... proud of him. Duo felt foolish when a warmth crept over every inch of him and a lopsided smile split his thin face. Heero's opinion meant a great deal to him just then. Heero hardly glanced at his watch as he stood up from his chair, blue eyes glowing as he nodded and said, "It is time. We had better go."   
  
+  
  
Wu Fei's room looked as if Quatre had decorated it especially for him. He probably had. Quatre never tired of seeing his old war comrades and even Duo had received an invitation periodically.   
  
Mats covered the floor. A simple raised platform, with a white tube for a pillow, served as a bed. A large window looked out on a rock garden that Duo suspected had been put there for Wu Fei's benefit alone.   
  
Wu Fei himself was seated by the window, glasses perched on his nose and bald head reflecting the sunlight as he read a vid book. He looked very ascetic, muscle wrapped over bone and face stern. When he looked up at Duo and Heero, he said in his old arrogant tone. "Yuy, go! You will be a distraction."   
  
Heero frowned. Duo shrugged and smiled, "I can handle old Wu Fei by myself, Heero. Don't hover, k?"   
  
Heero nodded reluctantly. "I will be waiting in the gym room."   
  
Heero left and Duo felt as if all of the warmth in the room had left with him. Shivering a little, he hugged himself and complained, "What happened to the heat, Wuffie?"   
  
Wu Fei scowled. "You will learn not to care, but it doesn't help your case with me that your first thoughts are for your comfort. The training I am about to impart on you is anything but comfortable."   
  
Duo fiddled with his braid self consciously. "Sorry, Fei, I'm just skinny, you know? I feel the cold a lot more than other guys."   
  
Wu Fei stood up, putting his book and glasses aside. "The training I will give you will teach you to control body temperature, heart beat, blood pressure, breathing, anything pertaining to bodily function. Being hot or cold can be a choice, if you ever reach the stage of mastery."   
  
Duo flipped his braid back behind his shoulder and stepped forward, squaring his shoulders. "Well, I don't think I'll have time to be a master, or the inclination, but if you can give me enough control to get through my withdrawal symptoms, I'll definitely owe you a big one."   
  
Wu Fei stared and then he sighed. "Sit there." He motioned to a place on the mat. Duo sat, cross legged, and tried to relax. Wu Fei sat opposite him with perfect grace as he continued, "Do you remember when were prisoners together and they turned off our oxygen supply?"   
  
Duo stiffened and wrapped his arms about himself hard. "Hey, man, you know.... I really don't want to talk about that."   
  
Duo remembered the incident and he felt his heart begin to beat faster, sweat beading on his forehead. It was fodder for his nightmares, that time when he had sat with Wu Fei, waiting to draw his last breath, trying not to shame himself, but, in the end crying out, using up their last, precious oxygen to panic.   
  
Wu Fei studied Duo's reaction. "I gave you enough air to survive by controlling my own body, by needing less oxygen. That is the kind of control that I am going to attempt to teach you."   
  
Duo felt himself go pale, trying not to breathe faster, trying not to remember the claustrophobic feeling of being strangled without benefit of someone's hands at his throat. "Did I ever- Did I ever tell you how much I appreciated that- what you did for me?"   
  
"No," Wu Fei replied, but then shrugged. "We were soldiers. We did our duty. Thanks wasn't required."   
  
"Still...," Duo sighed and then met Wu Fei's black eyes. "Thanks, Wu Fei," he said, being careful to give his name the correct inflections.   
  
Wu Fei inclined his head in acknowledgement. "If you are done blathering, Maxwell, I will need you to assume a basic meditation first level. You know that much, I assume? You were given basic martial arts training?"   
  
Duo smiled, "Well, more than basic, but, yeah, I can do that much."   
  
Duo closed his eyes and tried to let his mind settle into a meditative state. It was harder than he thought. Things kept interfering, song lyrics, thoughts about Heero and the man combing out his hair, the memory of being suffocated... Duo tried to put that last memory back into the box in the depths of his memory from which Wu Fei's words had dragged it.   
  
"Try a mantra," Wu Fei suggested, sensing Duo's difficulty. "Do you know one?"   
  
Duo nodded and smiled in such a way that Wu Fei blinked in surprise. Yes, Duo thought, he did have a mantra. He began saying it to himself, repeating it until it became a steady drone, and then a white noise that let his mind settle into blank meditation. 'Just wait', Duo chanted silently to himself, 'You are going to get yours, you bastards, and I'm going to do everything in my power to give it to you!'   
  
"Ready to begin?" Wu Fei asked after a time.   
  
"Yes," Duo replied calmly.   
  
"I'm going to name parts of your body, one at a time, and ask you to visualize the functioning of each," Wu Fei explained. "Today we will start with the lungs and breathing."   
  
Duo quirked an eyebrow. "Breathing? Why?"   
  
"Energy flows throughout your body," Wu Fei explained. "Adrenalin, oxygen, proteins, carbohydrates, etc., make up a stream of energy that you have to learn to control. Breathing also helps to regulate heartbeat and blood pressure. Breathe badly and all of these things become twisted and labored. The body becomes out of balance and damage results."   
  
"Oh, okay," Duo replied, trying to stay in his meditative state.   
  
"Belief IS necessary," Wu Fei growled.   
  
"I believe in you, Wu Fei," Duo replied seriously.   
  
Wu Fei raised eyebrows at that. He shifted uncomfortably, trying not to feel pleasure at Duo's trust. He had to be the master. He had to be stern. "Very slowly, breathe deep and imagine the breath moving throughout your body. Do this several times....."   
  
Much later, Duo rubbed at his diaphragm as he limped to the gym hoping that Heero was still there. Twitches and twinges from his breathing exercises, and a stiff backside from sitting too long, made Duo almost eager to exercise his body instead of his mind. He didn't have any doubt that what Wu Fei was teaching him was a valid form of body control, but Duo had found it hard to sit and see himself learning the critical lessons in time. Even Wu Fei had been finding it hard to be optimistic, though Duo had done better than he had expected.   
  
The sound of a weight machine came to Duo's ears as he crossed the large room with the climbing rock and entered the gym at the back. Heero had just finished a treadmill exercise and Quatre was on his back, methodically pushing the bars of a tension weight machine up and down. His face was intently staring at the ceiling, blue eyes and gold brows drawn and deep in thought.   
  
"Duo," Heero greeted him and he was looking... Duo chuckled, realizing that he had been appreciating the bare, upper body, and flexing muscles Quatre was displaying. Heero was struggling with a bit of jealousy.   
  
"Looking doesn't mean I want," Duo said jokingly, a cover over his deeper surprise. I didn't seem possible that Heero Yuy thought that he had competition, or that he could think that Duo had a chance of finding someone else to want him.   
  
Heero smiled slightly and looked embarrassed as he motioned Duo over to the leg lift machine. Duo complied reluctantly. Sitting down, he started when Heero took that opportunity to bend and give him a quick warm kiss along his neck. Duo shivered with goose bumps, looking up at Heero with wide eyes.   
  
"I waited a long time to reveal how I felt about you- about us," Heero said softly. "I know that I have to prove myself and show you that you can trust the things I am telling you. An illogical part of me is afraid that you will find a more agreeable partner while I am trying to accomplish that."   
  
"No one is knocking down my door to get a date with me, Heero, so relax," Duo replied bitterly.   
  
Heero didn't know what to say to that. He wasn't going to tell Duo a lie and say that Duo's self denigrating statement was inaccurate. Duo looked down, ashamed of his own low self esteem. Not that he thought that his own self image wasn't true, but Duo wished that he could live up to the way that Heero saw him. He wished that he could believe that he was beautiful, if even just a little.   
  
Heero bent to adjust the leg weights for Duo. He said thoughtfully, "I can out bench press, Quatre."   
  
Duo regained his smile at Heero's attempt to lighten the mood. "I can't get my head around how different you seem," he replied. "Old granite face, sour, no nonsense, spit and polish, always on a mission, get out of my way or die, Yuy, cracks jokes, waxes poetic, and smiles. He even learned, somewhere, to romance a guy."   
  
"I had four years...," Heero looked distant and frowned at some memory. It was hard to tell if it was pleasant or unpleasant.   
  
"Who was he?" Duo asked as he began to work the weights with his legs.   
  
Heero looked startled, but then he nodded and replied honestly, "It was one sided. I never forgot you, or wanted anyone else, but he taught me how to regain some of my humanity." He shrugged. "He was good in bed and he was a romantic."   
  
Duo felt a bit of jealousy himself, even though Heero was passing whoever it was off as a fling. "Maybe he'll show up again," Duo said, "If it were me, I wouldn't let you go so easy."   
  
Heero shook his head and he said shortly, "It wasn't easy. He killed himself."   
  
Duo felt nausea grip his stomach. He managed to say, "Sorry, man! I didn't mean-"   
  
"I told you," Heero cut him off, "I wasn't serious about him. I was sad, but, I did not feel responsible for his unstable mental state or feel as if an irreplaceable part of myself had been lost. He told me... He told me that I WOULD feel that way in his letter to me."   
  
They both fell silent, thinking, and then Duo became aware of the frantic motion of Quatre's weight machine. Heero noticed at the same time. They both turned to look at the blonde Arabian. Quatre's teeth were gritted and his muscles were shaking and covered in sweat, his face a study in anguish as he continued to pump the weights as fast as he could.   
  
"Quatre!" Duo shouted and struggled to get out of the leg weights.   
  
Heero, unhampered, strode to the weight machine and simply caught the bar on the down stroke with both hands. Quatre swore and struggled to continue. Heero was as unmovable as the stone out in the other room. For all of Quatre's bulk, Heero was easily the stronger.   
  
"Quatre!" Duo shouted again. He made it out of the leg weights, left the bench, but staggered and fell to one knee when he tried to walk. "What the Hell's going on?" Duo demanded.   
  
Quatre closed his eyes tightly and let Heero control the weight bar. Heero relaxed his grip and handed Quatre a nearby towel. Quatre dropped it over his own face, hiding from them. His muscles were still shaking from the strain. "Saw a news story," he said at last, his voice muffled by the towel, "victims of the war. Horrible! There was a little girl with a leg gone and a burn all across her face. She said... she said it happened when a Gundam fought Oz through her town."   
  
"Yours?" Duo guessed quietly as he regained his feet and leaned against another weight machine.   
  
The towel nodded and a small sob was heard. Heero reached down and gripped Quatre's hand hard. Quatre gripped back gratefully and began to cry in earnest.


	15. Bones

"Captain Maxwell, after looking at your very thick file, and reading your previous doctor's notes on your appearance and behavior, I have to say that this 'vacation' has been anything but. I seriously suggest that you return to your home and see your physician and psychologist there immediately."  
  
Seated uncomfortably in front of the doctor, Duo felt his stomach turn into a sick knot. After Heero and Wu Fei's strenuous training, Duo was surprised that he had been able to even walk into the psychiatrist's office unaided. Every muscle screamed pain and the tension of Wu Fei's intense mind work, stressful on so many levels, was clear on Duo's face. He was pale and drawn, cheeks sunken slightly, and his body was pulled in on itself with his arms held tightly against his aching sides. He had worn his loose, long, black coat, but it couldn't hide that he was physically and mentally worn down to the bone.  
  
The doctor was standing, holding Duo's journal, facing Duo as if he were an Oz interrogator, one hand on his hip and sallow face drawn into a sour scowl of disapproval. He looked like a gawky bird, Duo thought, complete with a beak of a nose and long sticks for legs. His office was bland, just like the man, and Duo wondered if there was a catalog for bland that all doctor's offices subscribed to.  
  
Duo attempted to diffuse the situation. If the doctor suspected... if he ordered Duo to return home... Duo tried for a lighter mood, forcing himself to uncoil and not scream in pain as he made muscles assume a relaxed pose in his chair. He even managed a self deprecating smile as he said, "I guess you caught me. I was having way too much fun at Captain Winner's estate. He has the money, ya know?" he drawled good naturedly and winked. "Can't blame a guy for taking advantage of his generosity. I just partied a little too hard."  
  
The Psychiatrist gripped the journal with a white knuckled hand. He made a small motion with it, scowling even deeper. "I know. I read your journal, Captain. Let's just say, I didn't believe the stories about you until now. You are a man of.... excess."  
  
Duo grinned and shrugged. He had always made up every word in his journal. In the limo, on the way to the office, he had scribbled outrageous nonsense to account for his time since seeing his last Psychiatrist. He never knew whether to be amused, amazed, or disturbed that no one ever questioned his account of his day to day life.  
  
"I didn't realize that Captain Winner was so... progressive in his activities," the doctor was saying.  
  
Duo winced, realizing too late that he should have reigned himself in and not included Quatre in his more eccentric, made up, activities. "Well, he just sort of watched disapprovingly," Duo quickly amended. "I think I exaggerated a bit."  
  
"I see." The doctor pointed the journal at him. "Is there anything else you would like to amend, Captain Maxwell?"  
  
It was hard to tell what mood the doctor was in. He seemed eager and moderately friendly, yet ready to be... disappointed? Annoyed? It was hard for Duo to figure him out. He felt that he needed to. The man was going to write a report and submit it to the government. Duo couldn't afford a bad report so late in the game.  
  
"I'm afraid not," Duo admitted, as if he were proud of being the perverted, eccentric, ex- Gundam pilot he had described in his journal. "The pills make me too damn spaced for getting it on with anyone, so I'm kind of stuck with partying and hanging from the chandeliers instead."  
  
"And other things...," The Doctor added pointedly, eyes watching Duo very carefully for his response.  
  
Duo smiled impishly. "And other things," he repeated in agreement.  
  
Duo's other doctor had always been pleased when he had admitted to debauchery. It's what the government wanted, for Duo to discredit himself and make himself a non threat by ruining himself in drink, drugs, and disgusting behavior. If he fell low enough, Duo surmised, then making him suddenly and mysteriously disappear, wouldn't be a hard job for the government. Duo could imagine everyone breathing a sigh of relief, if the sad, young, Gundam pilot were suddenly not around to embarrass them, or himself, any longer.  
  
The doctor made some notes on his chart and then handed Duo back his journal. As Duo took it, the man slid a hand along Duo's arm and gripped him tight there. Leaning down to be at Duo's level, he said in a very suggestive voice, "If you promise to take better care of yourself, I won't order you to return to your own home. You can continue to enjoy Quatre Winner's generosity. When you visit my office next, if you are agreeable, I can provide you with some 'entertainment' that might interest your particular 'tastes'."  
  
Duo didn't let his burning shock reach his face. His hands tightened on his journal and he said with a stiff smile and fierce, purple eyes, "Are you sure that you're up to satisfying my particular interests?"  
  
The man smiled back, believing that Duo was agreeing to his overtures. His breath was hot on Duo's skin as he said confidently, "Oh, yes, Captain Maxwell, be assured that I can meet every need that you can imagine."  
  
"I'd like to see that," Duo replied, but he was slipping out from under the doctor and standing up at the same time. "No previews until then, though."  
  
The doctor licked his lips as he straightened and said, "Of course not. We don't have the time. I'll make certain to clear my schedule at your next visit."  
  
Duo eyed the chart in the man's hand pointedly. "I don't think I have to tell you what my price is?"  
  
The doctor laughed and it wasn't a pleasant sound. "There is only so much that they will allow me to do, but I will write a report that will keep the authorities complacent.... as long as you play nicely."  
  
"Count on it," Duo smirked and turned so that his braid swung enticingly against his hips as he left the office and the excited doctor behind.  
  
Once outside the office and down the hallway, Duo found Heero pacing agitatedly with his hands in his pockets, face scowling in concern. He was dressed in a loose, dark blue jacket and a black turtle neck sweater. His blue jeans had a hole in one knee and he was wearing steel toed, black work boots. He looked like a young punk just then, hair a wild, disordered, chocolate tangle, but as Duo approached, and he saw Duo's drawn, pale expression, he looked like a man again in an instant; a very dangerous man ready to protect someone he cared deeply about.  
  
Duo tossed his journal into a nearby trash can. It hit bottom with a satisfactory, thud! "Time to burn some bridges," Duo said in a shaky, but determined voice. "I'm not going back there again."  
  
Heero didn't say anything until they climbed into the limo and began the long drive back to the Winner estate, then he leaned back into his seat and looked sideways at Duo. "Maybe you should start with the hospital. You didn't say anything when you left there either."  
  
Duo grimaced, unconsciously rubbing at his arm where the psychiatrist had pawed him. "I think that I suddenly don't count," Duo replied.  
  
Heero was puzzled, but he gave himself time to think about that statement. "Did they hurt you?" he asked at last and Duo heard a threat; fatal consequences for anyone who dared to harm Duo.  
  
"No," Duo replied, "but, they weren't 'nice'. They acted like I was fair game and that nobody was going to punish them."  
  
"Duo..." Heero reached out, but Duo avoided his touch and hunched in on himself. Heero reclaimed his hand, clearly stung by the rejection, but he asked gently, "Tell me what happened."  
  
Duo looked down at the floor of the limo, at his booted feet and the way his long coat was worn at the hem from dragging on the ground at his heels. He didn't want to tell Heero about how the doctors at the hospital had joked, close enough that he could hear them, about his chances of surviving the year. They had laid bets on it and upped his medication dosage so that they wouldn't have to wait too long for the outcome. The psychiatrist... Heero would go back and hurt him severely, Duo was certain. That would blow up in their faces. They would have to run if that happened and Duo didn't have any illusions about their chances.  
  
"I don't understand...," Duo said softly, paused, and then finished. "I don't understand how so many people can be in on this, or why they are doing these things to me."  
  
Heero replied, "I am certain that, if I researched the backgrounds of all of those men, I would find Oz at the heart of their histories. We made many enemies, Duo, and the reach of Oz is still long even in peace time."  
  
"It scares me," Duo admitted, "that level of corruption. It's so much easier just to believe that I'm being paranoid."  
  
Heero was very quiet. Duo looked up at last. Along with obvious signs of exhaustion, Heero had a bitter expression on his face. Duo tried to remember the last time that he had seen Heero sleep, eat, or just relax, but couldn't remember Heero doing any of those things.  
  
"It's a long drive," Duo told him. "I just want to think about things right now. You can take a nap, if you want." When Heero began to object, Duo added, "I'll keep watch, don't worry." He tried to look more alert than he really was and he kept the pain off of his face, knowing that Heero was still too much of a soldier to want to sleep in a strange place unless he felt safe.  
  
"I will be more helpful to you later, if I rest now," Heero acknowledged, but studied Duo skeptically as he asked, "You will be able to stay awake?"  
  
Duo nodded confidently. Heero nodded back, choosing to believe him, and then simply composed himself and fell quickly asleep. The speed of it amazed Duo. He almost thought that Heero was faking it, but Heero's slow, even breaths, and slight eye movements under his eyelids, told Duo that he had slipped into REM sleep.  
  
Either he was that exhausted or he absolutely trusted Duo. Duo felt a warmth spread through him, pleased by either reason. He had been feeling completely helpless, almost an invalid. During the war, he had prided himself on being tough, on being resilient, and on pulling his weight among the group. It gave his self confidence a slight boost to be able to watch over Heero, to guard his sleep, and to give him a chance to be cared for. Duo knew that, in the very near future, he was going to have to ask for that favor to be returned to him in spades.  
  
Duo tried not to move too much. He didn't want to set off Heero's hair trigger defenses. Instead, he leaned back into the car seat and stared out at the scenery passing by. It was rocky and bright with sunshine, but the grass was bitten by cold. A few fat cows and goats grazed alongside the sharply rising road. In a beautiful place like that, dark government intrigue seemed an impossibility; the mad dream of mad Gundam pilots.  
  
Duo looked sideways at the bag at Heero's feet. The man had taken it from him after he had left the hospital and Duo knew why. He suspected that the pills the doctors had given him, with their deadly increased dose, were already gone and lining a garbage bin just like his journal. No turning back now? That wasn't true. It was too easy for Duo to slip away from his would be lover, and Quatre's estate, to get more of the same. As Wu Fei had told him, it was all up to him. The decision was entirely his to make. Heero could put pressure on him and help him to succeed in kicking his pill habit, but, ultimately, the task was in his, Duo's, hands.  
  
A few more days, Duo thought anxiously. Not much time to learn to control his body, not much time to tone it to the point where it burned energy quickly and, so to, the effects of the pills. He had tried to stop taking the pills before and had failed. The government had found out about each of those attempts and Duo's doses had risen with his rebellions. This time, if he failed, knowing what he knew now, that they didn't fear him or retribution any longer, he could imagine what his fate would be. Increasing his pills to another level, he felt, wouldn't even be a consideration.  
  
In the corner of his eye, Duo saw Heero twitch. His breathing had grown a little ragged. Duo turned his head, concerned. Heero was obviously dreaming. "No," Heero suddenly muttered, almost angrily, "work isn't more important than you, David, it's just... it's just that I don't love you." A pause, as if Heero were listening to the ghost of his dead lover, and then, "I can't produce feelings that I don't possess. Nothing you can say will change my mind, least of all threats." Another long pause and then Heero frowned as he continued, "I'm taking an assignment on Earth. I think a permanent separation is in order. Please remove your personal items from my apartment. I shall be vacating the premises in two days.... David... I will not talk about this matter any longer. There is nothing more to say. Yes, I will miss you. I hope that we can stay on speaking terms. Though I don't love you, I do consider you a friend."  
  
Duo was shocked. If what Heero had just said was true, and not just a dream, then 'David' had killed himself shortly before Heero's arrival on Earth and his appearance in Duo's apartment. Duo felt his stomach clench tight and his heart ached with a pain fiercer than the pain already radiating throughout his body. If Heero could shrug off the suicide of an ex lover, and start pursuing a new relationship within days of it, then what kind of cold hearted, stone man was he?  
  
Duo had thought that he had seen compassion, sympathy, gentleness, and , yes, even love in Heero, but what if he had been wrong? What if his own loneliness, his need for help, and his own feelings for Heero were clouding his judgment? Duo suddenly experienced doubt and that was the last thing that he needed to feel when he had to be able to trust the people closest to him.  
  
There was a an all too familiar click. Duo froze and his eyes focused on Heero again. The man, passing into another dream, had clutched at his gun reflexively, half pulling it out of a waist holster and its hiding place under his dark blue jacket. Duo had automatically reached for his own gun, a gun he hadn't carried since the end of the war. He cursed when his hand touched only empty air.  
  
Heero was still a soldier for the Preventers, probably still killing men on occasion. One wrong move, Duo felt, and he would be the next man to fall under Heero's gun. Duo thought quickly. He had mostly worked solo during the war, but even he had learned a few tricks about waking comrades with deadly reflexes. He took a soft, un-threatening tone and said something familiar to any soldier that had been out in the field on the front lines. "Your watch."  
  
Heero was instantly awake, hand still on his gun, cobalt, blue eyes looking out from that cold, inner place that he had lived in all during his childhood and the war. Duo knew that look well from the war. It was like suddenly seeing an old friend. "Ready," Heero said automatically.  
  
Duo waited until Heero slowly realized that he wasn't on the edge of some bloody confrontation between soldiers, that he was safe and comfortable in a plush limo, that his hand was on the trigger of his gun, and that Duo was uncomfortably close to having a hole blown into him. Only when Heero released his gun, set the safety, and let it slide back into its holster, did Duo allow himself a sigh of relief.  
  
Heero started trembling, a lost, terrified look on his face. Duo found himself in Heero's arms without consciously deciding to do so, holding the man, reassuring him that he was all right. Heero held Duo so tight in return that Duo thought that his bones would crush under the pressure. Heero rained kisses on the top of Duo's head and then pulled his chin up to softly kiss his face as he looked anxiously into Duo's eyes.  
  
"If I had- If anything- I-" Heero stammered and then held Duo tightly again, burying his face into Duo's neck and just clinging.  
  
It didn't make any sense, Duo thought as he tried to calm Heero down. How could Heero ignore the death of an ex lover and then break down completely now when nothing had happened? Heero's emotions, his entire demeanor, told Duo that he wasn't lying, that he was genuinely terrified at Duo's close call. There were questions that had to be asked, more layers of Heero's history that Duo felt that he needed to peel back before he could take that final step, trusting Heero completely to keep him sane and alive when he stopped taking the pills. Any doubt at that point could be as fatal as Heero pulling the trigger of his gun during a nightmare.  
  
They reached the Winner estate after some time. Heero calmed down, though it was clear that he was ashamed of what had happened. Duo could see 'what if' thoughts running behind his eyes during the rest of the limo trip and Duo, wisely, decided it was better to talk later when the episode wasn't so fresh and troubling to Heero.  
  
A servant was waiting just inside the front door of the estate and Heero and Duo were informed that Quatre and Trowa were waiting to speak to them in one of the many solariums.  
  
"Let's not," Duo protested. He felt fragile, exposed, and raw just then and he didn't feel that he could survive any type of questioning. Too late, he realized that he had said 'Let's' as if they were a couple. He quickly amended, letting real weariness and pain seep into his voice at last, "I mean, you can go and tell them what's going on, but if I don't take my pills and get vertical soon I'm going to fall to pieces."  
  
Heero dismissed the servant with a polite excuse. "We'll join them for dinner and, afterwards, you can tell them as much about our trip as you feel they need to know."  
  
There was an unspoken plea in Hero's tone. Duo understood and assured him, "We all went through Hell and back in the war. We all have our problems because of it. I know that the other guys would understand, Heero, just like I do, that you couldn't help your reflexes. The rest, well, that's our business and not anyone else's. I won't be telling anyone, k?"  
  
Heero relaxed almost imperceptibly. "I'll help you to your room," he said, but there was gratitude in his voice.  
  
"I always thought that I was the one with all the troubles, that I was weak, or stupid, or something," Duo said as they limped up a flight of stairs and moved down a hallway. "Everyone else seemed to have their act together. Wu Fei was teaching. Quatre was the rich, respected, business man. Trowa was the entertainer, and you... well, you disappeared, so I just assumed that you had found your niche in society too."  
  
"Quatre showed you that even he has trouble coping from time to time," Heero replied. "We all have our demons and we can't always exorcise them completely."  
  
"Yeah, and some of us have more demons than others," Duo agreed as they entered his room.  
  
Heero helped Duo to sit down on the bed. Duo couldn't help a hiss of pain as he slowly allowed his knotted up body to lie back on the gel mattress. It hardly helped. His muscles seemed permanently tensed, unwilling to relax and give up the pain.  
  
Heero worked off Duo's boots and then snagged an afghan blanket from a chair back and spread it over Duo's body with care. Duo watched him go into the bathroom and then come out with his pills and a glass of water. Duo used the mattress to line the pills up and take them one at a time. As he finished, Heero took away each bottle.  
  
"I won't take the pills away in secret," Heero told him. "I've seen how you constantly check for them. I'm going to put them back into the bathroom."  
  
"Good," Duo sighed, trepidation fading. He licked dry lips and took another sip of water. He knew that he couldn't wait to ask Heero some very important questions, but he didn't want to hurt Heero either. He took his time with the water, trying to sense Heero's mood and an opening to begin.  
  
Heero took the water glass from Duo, after he had finished with it, and put it aside on a table. "Are the pills reducing your pain?"  
  
"Yeah, well, not all of the way, but enough to convince me to go on living," Duo replied, "You and Wu Fei sure know how to torture a guy. Between you two, and the doctors, I feel like I'm going to shrivel up and blow away."  
  
"It's necessary," Heero replied grimly, but there was a hint of compassion and regret in his blue eyes. "You know there isn't any other way."  
  
"I do know," Duo said and then, seeing his opening, he continued, "In the limo, and a couple of times before that, you showed me that you can be something other than a piece of frozen granite in the personality department, Heero," Duo began. "But, I guess you aren't completely cured of that super soldier mentality."  
  
Heero paused in placing Duo's boots and socks under the bed to get them out of the way. He straightened and blinked at Duo. "I do care for you," he said seriously. "It's true that I still have a great deal to learn about relationships and 'normal' living, but I think that I have improved a great deal from the way I was programmed to act in the war."  
  
Duo nodded and said, feeling as if he were poking a sharp stick at a bear that might be vicious, "I guess that programming still takes over once in awhile, like when you were sleeping and reaching for your gun, or when your ex committed suicide."  
  
Heero went very still, a look of consternation on his face. "Explain," he finally asked and his voice sounded on the verge of being either very sad or very angry.  
  
"I hope that you didn't talk in your sleep to Oz, when you were their prisoner, the same way that you did to me in the limo," Duo said. Heero was quiet. He couldn't be tricked into giving information. Duo had to tell him what he knew. "You acted as if you were talking to David," Duo told him, "You were telling him that you were splitting up and going to Earth. I suspect that he killed himself shortly after that, right? The old soldier mentality must have kicked in big time for you to show up in my apartment, talking about getting together with me so soon after something awful like that happening." It was a question, one Duo hoped Heero could answer in a way that was both understandable and acceptable to Duo.  
  
"He was a good friend," Heero admitted slowly as he sat on the edge of the bed. He frowned as if trying to work something complicated out in his head, "but he wanted more than that. I thought that I had made myself clear..."  
  
"He was just a fuck, then?" Duo wondered.  
  
Heero's head snapped around and his jaw tensed as he glared blue fire at Duo. "No! That was not the extent of our relationship!"  
  
"If you're saying it was more than that, then I have to wonder why you didn't seem to mourn," Duo persisted bravely. "I have to wonder if you're telling the truth."  
  
Heero stood up abruptly and turned away from Duo. He sank his hands into his pockets and stood stiffly. "I still don't understand David's motivations, why he committed such acts and blamed his emotional state on my actions, but you are mistaken, Duo, if you think that I don't feel sad or regret what happened between us. We were friends and he was a mentor to me. I didn't love him, though, and I never pretended otherwise. David was an independent man with a full life. We moved in together only to be more efficient in our work, not out of a shared desire to spend our lives together... or so I had thought. I never suspected that David considered our relationship to be deeper than that of friends."  
  
"Heero..." Duo fiddled with the afghan, trying to find the right words for what he wanted to ask. Finally, he decided to be blunt. "I want to know that you gave a shit about this David, that you were upset that he killed himself, that you felt SOMETHING when he died, that coming to me and trying to start a relationship wasn't- well, wasn't because he never counted and you could forget about him like a light switch going on and off." Duo gritted his teeth and added, "Because that's not the kind of man I want with me, or want to trust when push comes to shove with my pills."  
  
"I had planned to come to Earth, to find you, long before David's suicide," Heero explained. "The Preventers wanted me to evaluate you for the mission, that was true, but I knew that I was going to try to use what David had taught me to initiate a relationship with you at the same time. I planned to tell David, to explain that I had always felt strongly about you, that he had given me the skills and the confidence to believe that I had something to offer you at last, besides a cold, emotionless, soldier. I was never allowed to tell him. He started an argument about work and then he revealed to me his hopes for a relationship between us. I was forced to reject his overtures."  
  
"So, when he died...," Duo prompted when Heero fell silent.  
  
Heero turned and faced him and Duo saw that his face was pinched and full of confusion. "David decided, not simply to commit suicide, but to 'punish' me by trying to destroy part of the Preventers building. He wanted to destroy the thing that he thought was keeping us a part, but he killed himself along with several other people as well." His hands clenched into fists. "Duo, I asked people why he would do such a thing. I wanted to understand what he had hoped to gain. If he did it to force me to begin a relationship with him, then why kill himself? Why destroy innocent people along with him? Why destroy buildings as if they mattered in the conflict that we were having?"  
  
Duo thought about it, but David's actions were shocking and he felt himself almost as confused as Heero. "I'm not sure why he did that," he replied at last, but then a reason occurred to him. He offered it tentatively. "It's possible that David knew that you would never love him or want to be with him. It's possible that he wanted revenge, that he suddenly hated you instead of loved you; wanting to destroy what he considered important to you."  
  
"People do that?" Heero wondered in a small voice. "The war was easier. Being an assassin with Odin Lowe was easier. We were paid, we killed. We needed peace, we killed. Killing for spite, because I refused to return emotions that I didn't possess, disturbs me." He looked at Duo like a naive child suddenly given a taste of a cruel, confusing world.  
  
Duo knew what Heero was asking without asking. "Don't worry, Heero," Duo reassured him. "I'm not that kind of guy. Most people aren't like that. I think you were right when you said that David was mentally unstable. You have to remember that and not go sour on the human race all together."  
  
"I hated him," Heero admitted suddenly.  
  
Duo blinked, "What?"  
  
"I hated him for killing those people," Heero explained. "That's why I didn't mourn his passing."  
  
Duo asked carefully, "But you were sad, sad that someone who had been a friend, had died in such a terrible way?"  
  
"Yes," Heero replied and sat on the edge of the bed again, hands lax between his knees. "I want to deny it, but I can't. It hurts when I think too deeply about it. I don't understand that feeling either. Why should I feel anything, but hate and contempt, for him? Why should I wish that he were still alive, that I could have said something that would have prevented him from taking people's lives?"  
  
Duo let out a small, sigh of relief. Heero did care. Heero was hurting. He had just covered it up and locked it away like a good soldier, until now, until Duo had been able to pry the box open and make Heero face his neglected emotions. "It's all right to be sad, Heero. It's all right to care for someone, even though they did something terrible. You don't have to deny those feelings and feel guilty about them."  
  
Heero stood again, running a distracted hand through his chocolate colored hair while his other hand remained deep in one pocket, as if he were chilled suddenly and needed to be warm. "I am not in control," he said self deprecatingly. "I need to be if I'm going to help you. I can't let my personal life distract me."  
  
"You forget," Duo said with a nervous smile, giving Heero something back for his revelations, "I'm your personal life now. You're supposed to work things out with someone you care about. Besides, it's better to get it all out now, rather than when I need you so badly that I won't be able to help you with them."  
  
Heero nodded, "This HAS helped, Duo, though I'm still confused about David."  
  
"It's a fact, Heero," Duo told him, "that we can never understand other people, and their motivations and actions, completely. Everyone is wired differently. You can't understand or predict people with one hundred percent accuracy, so don't beat yourself up about it."  
  
Heero nodded again. "I have to be alone and think about what you've said... and about David."  
  
Duo sighed and pulled the afghan up to his chin. "Don't worry about me. I need some sleep. You go get your head on straight, Heero."  
  
Heero considered Duo for a moment and then asked, "You will be here when I come back?"  
  
Duo sighed. Why couldn't Heero just come out and ask him things? That last question was so pregnant with deeper meaning that it hung thick in the air between them. "Yeah, yeah!" Duo replied, making a tired, shooing motion., "Get out of here! And don't worry, the door is always open for you, Heero."  
  
Heero managed a smile, but it was heart weary. As he left, Duo thought to himself, 'Who am I kidding? I hide in my words just as much as he does.' It helped that he had managed to peel back more of Heero's history, but Duo was beginning to suspect that he wouldn't completely trust Heero until he had uncovered the man all the way down to the bone.


	16. Crux

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings:Male/Male sex. Graphic. Language. Violence. Very strong content in this one, so if you are sensitive please proceed with caution!

"Why won't you tell me where you put them?" Duo asked in agitation. "You said that you wouldn't hide them from me!"  
  
Heero's face was almost expressionless, trying to project calm for Duo's benefit, but he couldn't keep the worry off of it completely as he replied, "You know that it is necessary, Duo. They had to be modified so that your dosage can be stepped down, but, if I made the remainder available to you, you would try to take more."  
  
"Modified" Duo echoed that one word, fearfully, knowing what that meant. His hands clutched strong arms not his own in reaction. Those arms held him tighter, forestalling any sudden, or violent moves.  
  
Sitting in a chair by the table, it was Trowa Duo was locked in an embrace with, the slim, wiry acrobat standing behind him and crouching to keep him in his seat. Panting with growing alarm, Duo could hear a calming, "Shhh," from Trowa in his ear.  
  
"Duo, it will be all right!" Quatre said from across the room. He was rubbing at the center of his chest, feeling the tension in the room keenly. Both he and Heero had declined to be the one's to keep Duo under control, both of them strong enough to break bone accidentally if Duo became too wild. Trowa was larger than Duo, but very slim and very attuned to his body because of the find acrobatic work that he did at the circus. He easily held Duo in place, yet managed not to hurt him in the process.  
  
Wu Fei stepped forward, face very stern. He met eyes with Duo and said, "A crossroads has come into your life, Maxwell. It's time to prove just how strong you are in body and mind. We have been preparing you for this moment, but it is up to you to take the next step. Calm your mind. Calm your heart. Do what you know must be done and don't hinder or curse Heero for helping you."  
  
"It's going to hurt!" Those words erupted from Duo before he could stop them and a tear slipped down one cheek from his amethyst eyes. Duo shook the tear away, ducking his head, feeling ashamed by it and his plaintive outburst, yet unable to stop the flow of more tears.  
  
Wu Fei was quiet for a moment and then he said, "It is your trial by fire. You've had them before and passed each time. The pills make you weak. They make you a toy for your enemies. You sit and cry and whimper like a beaten dog. Where is your pride? Where is your courage? Where is the man, Duo Maxwell? Find him and triumph over your enemies."  
  
Duo wiped his face on his sleeve by roughly raking his cheek over it sideways. He was dressed in a black, cotton nightshirt, knowing that street clothes were going to be out of the question considering what state he was soon to be in. Everything dangerous or breakable had been removed from his room. A pair of cushioned handcuffs adorned the bed frame. His friends had gathered. He was about to be denied a full dose of medication. The pain was going to start. Wu Fei was telling him-telling him... "I won't be a chicken shit and back out!" Duo stated fiercely and raised his head, glaring at Heero. "Give me the dose, Heero, but you better freakin' take care of me!"  
  
"Always!" Heero replied, just as fierce. Duo grinned at him, a man looking death in the eye, and Heero grinned back; soldiers ready for battle.  
  
"Close your eyes," Wu Fei told Duo. "It will be easier if you deny your mind the visual stimulation to reinforce your mental and physical reaction."  
  
Trowa suddenly surprised everyone by saying, "I do not like this!"  
  
"What?!" Quatre exclaimed, blue eyes wide with confusion.   
  
"Why, Trowa?"  
  
"I feel that Duo is being forced," Trowa explained, agitation coloring his voice. He began to loosen his grip. "He seems to be backing out and you are shaming him into continuing."  
  
"No," Duo replied firmly, struggling against the rising urge to take the opportunity for escape that Trowa was giving him. He closed his eyes, instead, and put hands on Trowa's arms to keep them in place. "I need to be forced," he explained almost angrily, voice rough with emotion. "The addiction is forcing me to live the life I've led up until now, Trowa. Can you understand that? It won't let me change without a fight, without help, without someone forcing me and being stronger than the pills. Please... do that for me, Trowa."  
  
Duo had never considered Trowa a friend. They had interacted very little during the war, the almost silent man as much a mystery then as now. When Duo felt Trowa nod against his hair and the man's arms tightened on him once again, Duo wondered at the shared experience of blood and war that could make comrades out of even such different personalities as theirs. Four four years they had all denied that bond that went deeper than like or dislike, but now, in that crises, it was being renewed.  
  
Duo didn't have any option then, but to wait, feeling as if it were at his execution and the firing squad was being reluctant. He heard shuffling, Quatre cough, Wu Fei mutter something, and then Heero was very close and saying, "Here are your pills, Duo," and placing them in Duo's hand. The execution was being carried out at last and Duo was being given the opportunity to participate in it.  
  
Trowa shifted his grip to allow Duo to swallow the pills, yet Duo remained frozen while sensitive fingers felt the odd shapes of the pills and his mind realized that Heero had cut them down to reduce their potency. It wasn't his ritual, his mind clambered in alarm. It wasn't the pills he knew he needed to take. Duo began to panic and watched himself do it as if he were outside of his body and only a spectator. He couldn't help tensing against Trowa's arms. He couldn't help shivering or slow the rapid speed of his heart. All of Wu Fei's training was blown away by the force of rising agitation; by an addict's reaction to being denied his full fix.  
  
"Swallow the pills!" Wu Fei urged and pushed Duo's hand up to his mouth, "Don't think!"  
  
Duo obeyed in part. He needed the fix more than he needed the ritual, so he swallowed the pills with difficulty, Heero handing him a plastic cup of cold water to wash them down with. His body sighed with relief, thinking that it was getting what it needed, yet Duo couldn't follow the second half of Wu Fei's order. He couldn't not think. He couldn't not realize that he hadn't taken a full dose.  
  
Duo opened his eyes and stared at his comrades. They were staring back, anxious, yet cautious. Heero was still very close, leaning down, cobalt blue eyes wells of concern. "I'm fine," Duo said with a grin and then, patting Trowa's hands, he added, "You can let go, Trowa. I guess this isn't too far along yet to really bother me."  
  
Hard on the heels of that, Wu Fei said quickly in warning, "He's lying!" He scowled at Duo, snapping, "You were never good at lying, Maxwell, so don't start now."  
  
Duo felt the panic rising again. He needed to convince them. He needed them to believe what he was saying, "I am all right!" he insisted, measuring out each word and trying to stay calm, "Let me go!"  
  
Trowa asked the others uncertainly, as unconvinced as Wu Fei, "What now?"  
  
"I think he'll be all right once the pills enter his system," Heero replied. "He should be restrained until then."  
  
"Hey, guys!" Duo protested, still smiling, but unable to keep his attempt at a humorous tone from having an angry bite. "I told you, I'm all right!"  
  
"And I said that you are a poor liar," Wu Fei snorted. He leaned down to be at Duo's level, black eyes critical. "Admit it," he demanded, "You want to be free so that you can search for your pills. If we release you, you will tear Quatre's estate apart looking for them, won't you?"  
  
Duo's smile dropped, all pretense drying up and fear beginning to raise it's ugly head. Wu Fei had stated his exact thoughts. Duo glared. "Not that I'd find them, right?" he bit out. "Heero probably has them strapped to his shorts."

Heero grunted involuntarily in sour amusement, but he was serious again in the next instant as he stated confidently, "You won't find your pills, so be reasonable and don't try looking for them, Duo."  
  
"Reason has nothing to do with it," Wu Fei said with a knowing, clinical air as he looked at Duo keenly, "Am I correct, Maxwell?"  
  
Duo nodded, once, short and sharp, feeling ashamed again as he was forced to admit, "Yeah, I'll look anyway. I can't help it."  
  
"Then someone should stay with him at all times to keep him from doing that and, maybe, hurting himself and others," Quatre suggested anxiously, imagining a trained Gundam pilot, killer, and terrorist, wandering his home in a state of violent, mental meltdown. "I'll inform the servants-"  
  
"No!" Heero cut him off quickly in a tone that didn't invite argument. "I promised to take care of him and I will."  
  
"And you won't need to sleep, Yuy?" Wu Fei wondered with a sarcastic raise of a dark brow. "You will accept my assistance. It is logical arrangement, since you will have to continue his physical training, while I must pursue Maxwell's mental training."  
  
"I will assist as well," Trowa said in Duo's ear, "You may need him restrained again. He has bones like a bird and not much fat to cushion them. We can't risk the added stress and trauma of a broken bone at this point."  
  
"I am in the room, guys!" Duo snarled. "You don't have to act like I'm not here!" He pulled sharply against Trowa's arms, unable to help his rising anxiety, but Trowa held him easily in place.  
  
Duo needed to find his pills. That unreasoning urge began to beat at him like a strong surf and that, coupled with a sudden feeling of being trapped and helpless, began to wash away at mental stability. Denied a physical means of escape, Duo resorted to the weapon of words, thrusting them into the hearts of his friends in an attempt to gain his freedom, not caring what he said in his growing fear and agitation; wanting released at all costs.  
  
"You're all just a bunch of hypocrites anyway!" Duo accused viciously. "You're just helping out crazy Maxwell because you feel guilty that you turned your backs on me for so long! Where were you when all of this started, huh? Ignoring your past and trying to forget all the times that I saved your lives in the war? Shaking your heads that old Duo Maxwell turned out to be just what you expected, L2 trash? Well, fuck all of you anyway! Let me the Hell loose and don't let the door hit you in the ass!"  
  
"Duo!" Heero said sharply. Duo glared, breathing hard, and Heero's expression of surprise, tinged with shock, brought him back to himself enough to feel the bite of shame, yet he couldn't stop the voice inside of him that told him that he needed his pills more than anything else just then, including his friends. "You know how things were after the war," Heero continued, setting the record straight, refusing to let Duo change it for any reason. "If you're going to blame us, then you have to blame yourself too. You are just as guilty of ignoring your comrades and trying to find a 'normal' life. You are only saying such things so that we will be angry enough to release you. That's not going to happen."  
  
Duo swallowed hard, lowering his head and hiding behind his chestnut bangs. He tried to think of another way, another plan, that would gain him his release, but the others were unmoved, silent sentinels that stood about him like statues, waiting. After a time, as the pills slowly entered Duo's system, he felt the familiar, calming haze of his medication overtake him. His panic began to recede and so too his unstable and unreasonable fear and need to find his pills. While the medication robbed him of clarity in some areas it granted him the opposite in others. Duo suddenly, and brutally, had his previous actions and words brought into sharp relief.  
  
Duo groaned in anguish, his stomach twisting into such a hard knot of realization that he felt ready to be ill. He shook his head sharply, knowing that any apology was useless, that he could never recall the hateful words that he had uttered or erase from the mind's of the others his moment of pathetic failure to keep control of his panic; his need for his drugs. Duo shouted to his friends, to the world, but mostly to himself, "I am such a weak, useless, bastard!"  
  
"We will work on your lessons," Wu Fei said patiently, "and you will learn to be less of one", as if Duo were simply a petulant student and not a man on the verge of disillusionment. Duo wanted to believe him, had to believe him. It was the only hope he had.  
  
+  
  
"Our mole at the Winner Estate has reported that all of the pilots are in residence and that they are in the process of helping Duo Maxwell to disobey government orders, Senator Santoro. He has gathered enough proof to support his claim. We can move against them at any time."  
  
Santoro rubbed a thumb across the thick scar on his face and grinned at the tall Alliance officer. "We will wait. When the withdrawal symptoms hit their hardest, Duo Maxwell will sing like a bird to get more of the medication. I don't have any doubt that he'll testify against his own comrades."  
  
The officer didn't appear to be so certain. "I've heard that the Gundam pilots were intensely trained in all areas of war, sir, are you so certain that Maxwell won't over come his addiction?"  
  
The Senator lowered his hand to clutch at a gold cross hanging by a gold chain around his neck. "The drugs he was given came out of Oz's best war labs. They were made to break men. They will break Duo Maxwell." He grinned. "I will take great pleasure in crushing what's left of him, and the other pilots, under my heel!"  
  
The officer smiled in eager anticipation. "I look forward to seeing that, Senator."  
  
+  
  
Duo rocked, shivering, teeth gritted and eyes wide and staring hard at Heero. Knees drawn up to his chest, he had his arms wrapped about them, sweat running down into the collar of his wrinkled and dirty night shirt.  
  
Duo pulled ineffectually at the handcuff around one wrist. It rattled against the iron headboard and Heero looked at him automatically at the sound, lowering the book he had been reading. Sitting in a nearby chair, he had rarely left it, or Duo's side in three days.   
  
The doctor dropped Duo's unbound wrist. "His pulse is erratic," he announced to Heero, "His heart and liver scans show tremendous stress already. Couple that with fluctuating hormone levels and my prognosis isn't good. I know that you will reject my recommendation, but I'm duty bound to give it. Put Captain Maxwell back on his pills. There is still time to avoid and long term or even fatal damage."  
  
"Thank you, Doctor Kinson," Heero replied noncommittally.  
  
The doctor sighed, as he picked up his equipment and charts. "A body wasn't meant to endure these kind of stresses, Captain Yuy," he informed Heero. "He can't win this battle."  
  
"Duo can," Wu Fei corrected. Leaning against a wall, with his arms crossed over his breast, he looked at the doctor as if the man were beneath contempt for his weak view of the situation. "You can't imagine the training we have all endured. Four years hasn't erased it from Duo's memory. He will use that training to overcome the effects."  
  
"I hope, for his sake, that you're right," Doctor Kinson snapped back angrily, "But I will report my findings to Quatre Winner. He may decide differently."  
  
"Duo has decided for himself," Heero told the doctor with an edge of warning in his voice. "Don't interfere."  
  
"Don't threaten me!" the doctor exclaimed angrily, but he was going towards the door more quickly. "I will do what is best for my patient."  
  
"We will do what is best for our friend," Heero assured him.  
  
"When is 'letting him die slowly and painfully' best for him?" Doctor Kinson shot back, but was wise enough to make his exit at the same time and close the door quickly behind himself.  
  
"Yeah, what he said!" Duo panted, acknowledging at last that he was aware of what was going on around him.


	17. Fly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Male/Male sex, violence, graphic, language, icky death.

"Duo," the soft voice of Quatre slowly penetrated Duo's misery. "I'm sorry that I haven't- I wanted to help you, like the others, but your pain... It hurts me too much. It makes me crazy; gives me flashbacks about the war. I haven't been very strong. I'm sorry that I can't cope. I'm sorry that I can't sit by your side like the others. I hope- I hope you can forgive me?"  
  
Duo was sweating profusely. Every muscle trembled. His teeth were gritted on pain and mental anguish. The pain throughout his body was incredible as hormones tried to reassert themselves, bones were finally able to show him just how much gravity, poor care, and Heero's exercises were hurting them, and his head tried to explode from the disorienting headaches caused by his first day of not having his pills. He turned his head, purple eyes huge in his sunken, white face, and remembered something he had said to Heero a long time ago, "You'd blame yourself for there not being air in space, Quatre."  
  
Duo's voice was a thin, rasping, ghost, but Quatre leaned close and heard. Quatre frowned, uncertain, and then he gave Duo a limp, sad smile. "I made my body strong, Duo, thinking it would make my soul and mind stronger too. It didn't. I'm still naive, little Quatre inside. Living day to day with the memories from the war, and now this," he added, indicating Duo, "overwhelms me." He gripped Duo's hand. It was shaking uncontrollably. "I can't help, but blame myself for not being able to keep it together."  
  
Duo snorted in bitter humor, "As if we have!" he said pointedly. "We're no different Quatre, we just cover it up better." A wave of nausea and anxiety swept over Duo. Quatre's hand tightened on his in concern, but Duo pulled away with the clink of the handcuff.  
  
"Better go," Duo managed to whisper. "It's going to get ugly again."  
  
It had been that way for Duo for days, bouts of manic, abusive, screaming, and attempts to escape, followed by brief periods of a lucid state when his body was too exhausted to fight and scream any longer. Now that the pills were gone completely, and the last of the drugs were leaving his body, Duo suspected that his lucid moments were going to become nonexistent and that he was about to spiral straight down into madness; a madness Duo had little hope of overcoming.  
  
"Can you bring Heero back?" Duo asked, trying and failing to recall why Quatre was there instead of Heero in the first place.  
  
"He was exhausted," Quatre explained. "I told him I would get you to eat while he slept a little."  
  
Duo's eyes followed a long, plastic tube from the needle in his arm to the liquid nutrition bag hanging in a stand by the bed. He grimaced. "Can't eat. Been throwing up." He panted through a wave of pain and anxiety. His vision blurred and then steadied on Quatre again. "I need Heero."  
  
Quatre could have ignored him, Duo thought, passing off his request as just another in a long line of ploys to be alone long enough to escape. Quatre was gentle and caring, but he wasn't a fool.   
  
He nodded, though, and said, "I'll wake him if you feel you need him that badly. James is outside the door. I'll leave him here to watch you." Quatre didn't say it, but his face said clearer than words that Duo's condition was tearing him apart. He was taking the chance that Duo was too weak now to cause any trouble. Quatre wanted to leave that badly.  
  
Quatre went to the door and let a dark haired man in. Rubbing the center of his chest as if he were in pain, Quatre explained the situation to the servant. The servant was an older man, very formal and very correct in his pressed uniform. He bowed respectfully to Quatre.  
  
"You may count on me, sir," James assured him.  
  
"Thank you, James, I know I can," Quatre replied in relief and then he was gone, closing the door behind him.  
  
Duo panted through another wave of pain and anxiety, trying to initiate one of Wu Fei's breathing techniques, knowing that he had to calm his pounding heart and lower his raging blood pressure. Slow in. Slow out. Duo struggled. His mind was burning. It whispered to him like a conspirator, escape the handcuffs, overpower the servant, escape the Winner estate, and get more pills. It was taking all of his will power to ignore that voice. Because of that, Duo wasn't finding the reserves he needed to deal with his breathing.  
  
Even in his condition, Duo's soldier training came to the fore, mentally pushing his anxiety aside, briefly, to make a comment about the servant. Duo physically frowned. The servant hadn't moved since Quatre had left and he was strangely silent.  
  
Duo blinked and focused his blurring vision enough to see the man halfway across the room. He was intently staring back at Duo with a gun in his hand, a smile on a sallow, narrow face, and a pleased glitter in his small, black eyes. Duo wondered, with rising alarm, if Quatre had given him the gun. If Quatre had given it to James, Duo wasn't about to blame him, but... it wasn't like Quatre to do something like that.  
  
"Any time now," the man suddenly said. "The Commander is going to be here with the troops. He's going to have every one of you stinking Gundam pilots shot between the eyes. Maybe he'll let me have the honor of doing you?"  
  
Duo wondered if he was hallucinating about the war or if his paranoia was twisting what the man was saying. When the man remained stubbornly real, sunlight from the large window glinting on the metal barrel of his gun, Duo could think of only one thing to say to address his helplessness, his anguish, and the fact that he always seemed to get the worst in any situation.   
  
"I quit!"  
  
James blinked. Duo's voice had been a thin whisper. "What?"  
  
"I quit!" Duo whispered again. "I've decided to be a bad guy. Call your boss. Have him get me some more pills. I'll do any bad guy thing he wants. You win. I lose. I'm done going through this torture. Where do I sign up to join the anti- unification forces?"  
  
James was still confused, the gun tensed nervously in his hand. "I can hardly hear you. What the Hell are you going on about?"  
  
Duo swallowed in his dry throat and crooked a finger at the man. James cautiously approached, glaring. "Let me go!" Duo whispered and rattled the hand cuffs. His wrists were raw and bandaged from fighting against the cold metal. "You want to take this place over and capture everyone, right? Well, I'm your man."  
  
"The Lieutenant told me that the pills would make you betray your comrades," James said with sudden understanding coupled with disgust. "That's why I haven't killed you yet."  
  
Duo froze, stricken, but then he was plastering on a large grin. "Yeah, he was absolutely right! I'll do whatever you want if you just help me get out of these cuffs."  
  
James hesitated. "It would be better if I waited for reinforcements."  
  
Duo lifted a lip contemptuously. "What? You can't handle a wasted piece of trash like me?"  
  
James raised his gun as if he intended to hit Duo with the butt end, but his hand tensed at the last moment and he regained control. Lowering the gun, he gave Duo a slow once over. "You're just a stinking bunch of sticks," he said with a disgusted flare of his nostrils. "I can handle you, don't worry, so don't try anything or I'll do more than blow a hole between your eyes, got that? The lieutenant should be on site now. I want to get in some fighting before all of your comrades get wasted. I'll turn you over to him and then I can have some fun." When he said, 'fun', his eyes glittered.  
  
"Okay," Duo replied with a shrug. "Do whatever, as long as I get some pills."  
  
James's contempt deepened. He leaned closer to Duo to inspect the cuffs. As he did so, he glanced at Duo, and then suddenly became intensely interested in Duo's face. Duo, sitting up against the head board, felt an urge to melt into the metal pressing into his back.   
  
"You have some pretty eyes, piece of Gundam shit," James said softly, as if it were a secret. "I've heard that you like some strange things. "  
  
Duo kept smiling, but sweat increased along his face and down his collar. "Huh, well, I'm sure you haven't heard everything," he replied in a hoarse, joking voice. He felt a threat in the air and it was growing as the man's eyes once again did a slow once over of Duo's defenseless body in its wrinkled, black nightshirt. "Let me go and I'll be a good boy and cooperate."  
  
"Why should I let you go?" James wondered slyly. "You're going to behave much better if I don't."  
  
James leaned in closer, a hand coming up to touch Duo's face while the gun crept towards Duo's forehead. Duo leaned forward as if to meet him, face going almost sensuous. "As long as I get the pills," Duo murmured in a thin, yet sultry voice.  
  
"When I'm done with you," James chuckled, "you won't care about pills any more."  
  
Without warning, Duo slammed his forehead straight into James. He hit the man a solid blow over the bridge of his nose. There was a gush of blood on both sides, but it was James who fell bonelessly into Duo's lap without a sound, either unconscious or dead.  
  
"In your dreams!" Duo bit out as he jerked his body and sent James out of his lap and onto the floor.  
  
With blood running down his face from a cut over his left eye, Duo used his teeth to jerk the I.V. needle out of his arm. "Shit!" he exclaimed as the small puncture wound began to bleed down his arm in a narrow stream. "I didn't think I had enough blood left to be a bleeder!"  
  
As quickly as he could, Duo maneuvered the needle between his teeth and slid it into the lock of the handcuffs. Contorting his head, Duo soon heard a satisfying click. Spitting the needle out of his mouth, Duo pulled his wrists out of the now open handcuffs, feeling tremendous relief to be free once more.  
  
"Gun," Duo said to himself, trying to think clearly through the pain of his head and his body in general. He slid off of the bed, tested his knees to make certain that they were going to hold him up, and then took the gun off of James. The man was dead, his skull split and his body still twitching convulsively as his eyes stared at a point on the ceiling. "Good," Duo whispered as he ripped a bandage from his wrist and retied it over the I.V. wound, "Now I don't have to waste bullets killing you, you bastard!"  
  
Duo took up a hand towel from the bedside table. Heero had been using it to wipe sweat from him. It smelled slightly rank, but Duo didn't have time to be picky. He pressed it to his forehead to stop the bleeding there.  
  
Duo's body was shaky and weak. The drug withdrawal was beginning to kick in full force. He didn't have much time left before he was completely incapacitated. He was already feeling a manic burning in his brain, that violent clamber to get more medication about to become his world and his all encompassing imperative. He had been faking when he had told James that he was willing to do anything for more drugs. Only his high saturation of the medication had saved Duo so far. Once it was completely out of his body, he wouldn't be faking any longer.  
  
"It would help if I knew what the Hell was going on," Duo muttered, uncertain what to do next, but then heard the sound of gunshots and shouting men from outside, followed by the loud crash of something solid being ripped apart violently.  
  
Going to the window and looking out cautiously, Duo saw an expanse of ground far below, a gazebo of fairy tale proportions, and a rock garden dominated by a gnarled tree. Filling it were government soldiers forming into armed search parties. It was obvious that they had breached the large, ornamental door that led to the back of the estate. The carved, wood panels had been Quatre's pride and joy. Duo could see carved pieces all over the ground, the siege machine nearby, with its metal claws, the likely cause of its destruction.  
  
Where was Quatre? Duo wondered. The man should have been outside making peace and bringing reason to the situation. Those were government soldiers, not Oz murderers. All that was required was unconditional surrender and a giving up of any arms, so, why wasn't that happening? Duo heard more shots. His ears could tell that there were more than a few people returning fire.  
  
Duo suddenly leaned heavily against the glass, desperately fighting a wave of nausea and dizziness that he couldn't afford to have just then. His anxiety surged. He panted and whined, scratching at his own arms, for how long, he wasn't sure. That raking pain gave him something to hold onto so that he could pull himself back to his senses again. Eyesight clearing, Duo found himself still staring outside the window, but his blood ran cold when he realized that the scene had changed drastically for the worst.  
  
Quatre and Trowa, arms tied behind their backs, were being led to a large man standing aloof from the others, yet obviously in command. Duo couldn't make out his features enough to tell who he was, but Quatre's bright curls, his large shoulders, and Trowa's long, slim build, made identifying them easy.  
  
The man spoke to them, gesturing curtly. Trowa and Quatre both looked away from him, refusing, perhaps, to give him what he wanted. The man motioned and a soldier landed a rifle butt into Quatre's face. He fell limply. Trowa knelt beside him, frantic, but there was nothing he could do with his arms bound. The commander began speaking again.  
  
A servant, perhaps one of Quatre's desert soldiers, came out of nowhere, trying to save his master, gesticulating threateningly. The commander, without taking his eyes off of Trowa, raised his gun and shot him dead. He fell in a heap beside Quatre, his life's blood running out thick and steaming on the ground, as Trowa sat down heavily, seeming to go into shock.  
  
Duo's training turned on like a switch. This wasn't a government action, this was war. Leaving the window, he throttled weakness and horrible need, began panting hard to work up an adrenalin surge to block out his pain, and knelt by his bag to take out a small case of things he had always kept with him out of habit, but had never thought to actually need again.  
  
Combing his hair out quickly with his fingers and then re-braiding it tightly, Duo slipped in lock picks, garroting wire, and razor blades beneath his thick hair. Sorting through a small bottle of pills, he found the ones he was looking for. One went into the bandage on his arm, poison in case the worst happened, and the other two went into his mouth. They were a last resort too, for when the body and mind were failing and near death. Those two pills had a good chance of being as deadly as the poison, yet Duo didn't have any choice in the shape he was in. He needed the numbness, and the flash of energy, those pills were going to give him if he was going to make any difference.  
  
As Duo found his clothes, black jeans and a gray turtle neck sweater, and put them on, he wondered exactly what 'difference' he hoped to make. He had to choose carefully. He had to spend his life where it would help the most. He didn't have long. Whatever he intended to do, it had to be done in an all out frontal assault before his heart gave out under the withdrawal from one set of pills and the forced energy surge of the others.  
  
Duo looked out the window again. The unconscious Quatre had been dragged off to one side along with the dazed Trowa. There were two guards on them. The commander had stepped away, talking to his troop captains. If they stayed together like that, then Duo's course of action was clear. To kill a snake before it could bite, it was necessary to cut off the head.  
  
Duo left his room cautiously. The hallways of Quatre's estate, usually full of the people who worked and lived there, were deserted. Walking at a slow pace, Duo braced himself along an ornate wall while his free hand clutched his gun. Listening at corners and intersections, Duo took a much needed rest at every stop, surprising himself each time he was able to force his body to continue afterwards.  
  
When Duo arrived at a service stairway, he knew that he would find it held by the enemy or Quatre's people. Either way, he had to manage to not get his head blown off. Since it was impossible to escape detection, Duo purposefully made noise. If there were friends downstairs, then they would be decent people and wait until they saw him before firing. If it was the enemy, then he hoped to draw them out long enough for a few, clear shots.  
  
No one challenged Duo in the end. He reached the bottom landing and discovered why with a sickening wave of nausea. Bodies, soldier and civilian alike, were scattered in a macabre tumble of blood and flesh just inside a shattered, narrow doorway. Quatre's people had given their lives.  
  
Edging around them, Duo slipped and slithered until he reached the doorway and was able to look out. The giant foyer was filled with milling soldiers and prisoners being searched, questioned, and beat into submission. It looked like chaos, but the edges of it were orderly, armed search parties finishing up looking in the last rooms of the downstairs and preparing to go upstairs next.  
  
Duo knew that he couldn't slip by unnoticed. He was unusually small, he still had blood on his face, and there wasn't a uniform anywhere, including on the dead men at his feet, that would fit well enough to pass. There was only one course of action, Duo thought with a grim smile as he tucked his long braid into the back of his turtleneck sweater. He had to hide in plain sight.  
  
Without hesitation, Duo strode out into the foyer and slipped himself between two groups of men coming together as they headed out the front door. It was seamless. Duo had to keep from smiling as the soldiers looked him over curiously, each group thinking that he was a prisoner of the other group. Duo kept his face downcast, sullen, and suitably defeated, playing the part to the hilt.  
  
The pills were making his heart hammer in his thin chest and Duo felt heat burning his skin as his blood rushed through his veins along with surges of adrenalin. At that moment, poised between the absence of one drug and the flow of another, Duo felt more alive than he had in years. His steps ignored gravity and took on a spring despite his swollen and hurting joints, his muscles tensed and flexed with false strength, and his mind cleared and became as sharp as a pin, intelligence returning full force to formulate plans and contingency plans. He knew that the pills were making his body eat itself alive for the energy, but, at that moment, Duo didn't care. He was Shinigami again, the God of Death, returned to the battle field and ready to take vengeance.   
  
The men tangled and became confused as they left the house through the shattered double doors. There was a curse or two and then a captain calling them to order. When they separated, Duo had ducked down and out of the larger men, using his much smaller body to advantage as he dropped and rolled behind a large stone statue of some long dead Winner ancestor.  
  
"You are still a bad ass," Duo said to himself and let loose the grin he had been suppressing as he inched his way along the perimeter of the rock garden, using the stunted, evergreen shrubbery, and the many statues for cover.  
  
Almost there, Duo calculated. He planned to try and free Trowa and Quatre first. They were valuable weapons that couldn't be taken off of the war game board. If Duo failed, he needed to know that his comrades would be there to finish the job. He also had his sights set on the two soldiers that guarded them. Both had been wearing automatic rifles. Duo didn't question whether he could incapacitate them or not. Failure wasn't an option. He needed those weapons, and their many rounds of ammo, to cause the most damage.  
  
Duo flattened himself against a tall, ornamental rock, the cold of the stone, coupled with the freezing air, chilling him to the bone. Shivering, he slowly inched his way around it, ears and eyes alert for the enemy. He wasn't prepared to run into a very large man leaning against the other side of the stone. The man was urinating. They both staggered as their bodies collided, but the big man was the first to recover. He grabbed Duo with a huge hand and slammed him, without hesitation, into the hard rock. His other hand squeezed the gun out of Duo's stunned hand, letting it fall to the ground, and then he was twisting both hands into Duo's sweater and lifting his frail body into the air.  
  
Eye to bloodshot eye with his captor, beginning to choke as the collar of his sweater knotted tight to his neck, Duo had a frantic view of the man's scarred face and his evil, amazed grin. "Well, well, well," the man chuckled darkly, "Just who I was looking for."  
  
Duo was slammed backwards into the rock again. He involuntarily cried out in pain and bitter failure as red light shot across his vision and darkness descended on his senses.


	18. Death

Duo came to as someone's lukewarm coffee was poured over his face. He winced and groggily started, rocks and bits of ground debris digging into every point of his body. His head was in agony, from the cut on his forehead and the drugs he had taken and not taken, and his back was on fire from the blow against the ornamental stone. Every fiber of his body, his stressed heart foremost, was screaming at him for relief.  
  
Duo throttled all of those sensations and dug down deep for the grit and determination that had enabled him to survive as an orphan on the streets of L2 and in the cockpit of a Gundam throughout the war. He forced himself to wipe the coffee from his eyes and to sit up.  
  
He hadn't been out long. The sun was still shinning and the soldiers were still searching the estate for the last two Gundam pilots. "This what you want?" A hard voice asked, making Duo freeze in the act of raising his head and looking around, especially when a clear bag, filled with six familiar bottles, was thrust into his face along with an electronic pad.  
  
"Confess that you, and the other pilots, were part of an anti-unification plot, and you can have these," the voice continued.  
  
Duo was riveted on the pills. He reached out to them, touching the bag with both hands, but the person who was holding them jerked them out of his reach.  
  
"I said," the voice repeated, "Confess and you'll get the pills."  
  
Tears tracked down Duo's face. He couldn't help the surge of need at the sight of those pills, or the loud, gibbering mental voice that begged him to do whatever it took to get them. When the electronic pad was thrust at him again, he took it in shaking hands and stared down at the confession glowing on the screen. It was waiting for his voice and thumb print to authenticate it.  
  
"I don't have a great deal of time, Gundam trash!" The voice lashed out. "If you don't authenticate it now, I'll shoot you dead."  
  
Duo looked up, finally, with a sickly grin. "I remember you, now!" The big man glared back, one hand holding an empty, thermal, coffee mug, and the other gripping the gun at his belt. He had only one soldier behind him with an automatic rifle. Too confident of his power, Duo thought, as he continued to speak as if he were talking about a pleasant memory, "I cut your pig face when you tried to kill me during an Oz interrogation!" Duo laughed, but it came out harsh. "Did you do all of this to get revenge on little me?"  
  
"On all of you," The Senator snarled. "You're a disease; the soldiers of the Unification forces. Once you fall, they will too."  
  
"That sounds pretty delusional," Duo retorted, "None of us have fought for the government since the rebellion. Did you say that for the benefit of the guard behind you? Are all of these men following you anti- unification rebels? You're too stupid to want anything but revenge, but not stupid enough to think that you could go up against us alone. I bet that you told these troops everything that they wanted to hear, just so that they would fight for you."  
  
"You're a drug addict," the man replied. His sneer made his scar twitch like a red snake across his face. "I think you are the one having the delusions. Authenticate the confession, or die."  
  
Duo cradled the computer pad in the curve of his arm as he said angrily, "You're going to kill me, and the others, anyway. Why should I make explaining our deaths to the government easier for you?"  
  
The man replied simply, "I can make your death last a long time if you don't cooperate."  
  
Duo grinned wider, his amethyst eyes glittering with daring, "Oh, but you said that you didn't have time."  
  
Senator Santoro let out a shout of anger and did just what Duo expected. He lunged at Duo, hands outstretched to strangle him where he sat. That position made it very easy for Duo to fling the electronic pad into Santoro's face and to slide underneath his guard to yank out the man's gun.  
  
"Bye!" Duo laughed as he twisted sideways, landed a bony fist into the surprised guard behind Santoro, and yanked off that man's automatic as the soldier fell with the breath knocked out of him. Duo began running backwards then, raising both gun and automatic to fire at anyone close enough, including Santoro. But the man was gone already, gravel crunching to indicate which direction he was running, but various ornamental statues and shrubs hiding him from Duo's weapons.  
  
"Shit!" Duo swore and turned on his heel, ignoring the violent pop of joints as he sprinted as best he could for Trowa and Quatre's last position. He didn't slow to even look as he rounded a statue. He knew that Santoro was already alerting his troops. He didn't have time for stealth or to second guess. As soon as he saw the groggy Quatre in the arms of a concerned Trowa, and the two soldiers, Duo began firing his automatic. The two soldiers fell in a spray of bullets, blood, and flesh without time to even realize what hit them.  
  
"Fool!' Trowa snarled as Duo scrambled to untie him. "They are already coming! Run, now before-"  
  
"Shut-up!" Duo snarled between gasps for breath as he finished untying the knots. "I'm saving you! Now, get your own ass to safety!"  
  
Trowa snatched up Quatre and an automatic rifle. Quatre groaned and held the side of his bruised and bleeding face, only seeming to be half aware of what was going on, as Trowa dragged him away to dubious safety behind some ornamental rocks. Duo stayed behind and Trowa didn't question that. The soldiers were already streaming towards them from all points. Trowa knew the drill. Duo would draw their fire and Trowa would try to slip away with Quatre in the confusion. Straws didn't have to be drawn or coins tossed to decide who would stay and maybe die. Duo was the worst in health and the least likely to be able to escape and live afterwards. They didn't need a meeting or a medical opinion to realize that.  
  
Duo grinned from ear to ear, the adrenalin rushing through him as he kneeled and placed his hand gun on the ground. Hefting his rifle, he said, with a dark laugh as he watched the soldiers running towards him and lifting weapons, "Come on! Time to meet Shinigami!" Duo wished that he had more than an automatic. He wanted his life, and the lives of Quatre's people, to cost those rebel soldiers dearly. When his hand was pulled off of the rifle and something cold was placed into it, Duo jerked and tried to bring the rifle around with a shout of consternation. He froze when he saw Heero's grimly smiling face.  
  
"I think that will be far more effective," Heero explained. "Be my guest."  
  
Duo recovered and looked down to see what Heero had given him. His smile took on demonic proportions. "Ooo la, la, Heero! You give the nicest presents!" Heero had given him a detonator.  
  
"Hurry," Heero urged him.  
  
Duo's eyes shimmered. He blinked against tears and leaned to kiss Heero full on the mouth as he hit the detonator switch. Heero caught Duo as he fell, Duo's borrowed strength running out of him like sand as the earth jumped and shuddered, the air reverberating from the sound of multiple explosions.  
  
"Duo!" Heero called frantically. "Don't die! You can't! I won't let you!"  
  
Duo felt Heero lifting him up and holding him against his warm body. Duo smiled gratefully, but he couldn't hold his eyes open. His limbs were useless weights, the rifle falling from his trembling fingers. "Sorry," he whispered. "We didn't even get a chance..."  
  
"Duo!" Heero sounded angry now, or on the brink of hysteria. He was walking. Duo could feel the jolt of it in his body as Heero ordered, "Use Wu Fei's techniques. Do it! You have to slow your heart beat! You have to steady your pulse! You're going to blow blood vessels and die if you don't!"  
  
Duo could feel it, his wildly beating heart and the pounding blood in his ears, but he replied sadly, "I had to take a little 'soldier's helper', Heero. You know what that stuff does. Nothing can help now."  
  
"No!" It was a choked sob. Heero was crying. He had stopped walking and Duo felt himself lowered, yet cradled close. Heero had sat down, ignoring his own danger, concerned only for Duo now. "Why do the people I care about keep killing themselves?!" Heero exclaimed in anguish.  
  
Duo snorted. He wished he could see Heero's face, but his eyes refused to open. He felt as if his muscles were being slowly paralyzed from the neck down, yet he was still thinking clearly. "So, you did care about David," Duo sighed.  
  
"I didn't love him!" Heero retorted and Duo felt Heero push his face against his own, kissing him and smoothing a hand over his cheek, "Not like you," he finished. "Please, don't die."  
  
It sounded so plaintive, so tender, so lost. Duo couldn't imagine Heero saying such things. He almost doubted his hearing, his sanity, and that it was even Heero holding him. But those strong arms, banded with muscles that could bend steel, were unmistakable, so too that certain scent that Heero always carried, not an aftershave, but something particular to himself. It was a masculine scent, undefinable, indescribable, and it reached down deep within Duo and told him plainer than words, that Heero was 'the one'.  
  
"I'll do my best not to die," Duo whispered, even then not willing to lie outright and give Heero a false hope. "You have to try and escape, though, Heero. We can't just sit here and wait for them to regroup and come after our blood."  
  
Heero was very quiet. He didn't move. He kept his face pressed against Duo's and held him even tighter. "It's already too late," he admitted. "I stopped because they've surrounded us. I- I love you, Duo. I wish I had broken my training when we were in the war and told you that. We could have been able to be together-"  
  
"No good in dreaming what could have been," Duo sighed. "We only have right now. Guess... Guess I love you too Heero. I always did. Always will." He chuckled bitterly as he began to slip away, "Such a damned shame! I'm dying a virgin after all, in heart and body!"  
  
"Don't shoot!" A voice shouted.  
  
Heero stiffened and Duo knew that he was going to disobey that voice, yet he stopped moving suddenly and Duo wondered why. "Milliardo Peacecraft," Heero said in surprise.  
  
"Heero Yuy," Milliardo replied in acknowledgement. "Drop your weapons. I can save Duo Maxwell's life."  
  
"You can't." Heero stated flatly.  
  
Duo heard the sound of a plastic bag being shaken and the rattle of pills. "I know what these are," Milliardo said. "I have contacts with the lab who made them. If we act quickly and stabilize Duo, I can get him the treatment that will cure him of the addiction without killing him."  
  
"No damned tubes and breather machines!" Duo groaned in protest, but he couldn't move and his voice was as thin as a ghost's. He doubted the two even heard him. "I won't live my life like that!"  
  
"Why help him?" Heero asked suspiciously. "What do you have to gain? If you help Duo off of the drugs, you'll be breaking your own government's laws."  
  
"He doesn't have time for us to argue!" Milliardo shot back. "My troops have secured the area and captured the rebels. My shuttle will fly us directly to a place where Duo can be placed in stasis. If he dies now, it will be your doing!"  
  
"Why?" Heero repeated. "Why would Milliardo Peacecraft help Duo Maxwell, a convicted anti- unification criminal, off of his government mandated medication?"  
  
There was a pregnant silence and then Milliardo said simply, "Because I love him and it's past time that I did the right thing."

+  
  
There seemed to be an endless conversation going on around Duo, most of it arguments, hot words being flung across his body like an odd game of verbal ping pong. Duo wanted quiet. He wanted to tell the voices to just shut- up, but he couldn't. He felt as it something heavy was holding down all of his limbs and some terrible force had rendered all of his senses, except his hearing, inoperable. It was torture and, he suspected, the ones doing the arguing didn't know that.  
  
"I don't trust you!" That was Heero; frantic, at his wit's end.  
  
"You must trust me!" Milliardo; angry, desperate.  
  
"Tell me how you knew about any of this, and I might," Heero shot back.  
  
Milliardo was quiet for a long time and then he sighed and said, "It's a long story, Yuy." A chair scraped and Duo heard the sound of someone sitting down heavily.  
  
A weight settled next to Duo, a dipping of the mattress registering on his sense of balance his only indication. Otherwise, he was numb, not feeling even the sheets on his body, or a surface against his back. Duo could have been floating in space and he wouldn't have known the difference. Only that dip of his inner ear, alerting him to a change in position, and the voices, gave the void he found himself in some solidity.  
  
"I'm not leaving Duo's side. We have time, Peacecraft. Give me the information that I want," Heero demanded, "or I refuse to let you treat Duo further."  
  
"That's madness!" Milliardo exclaimed. "He can't stay in stasis forever. His body will deteriorate past any treatment known to man!"  
  
"That would be better than some of the Oz 'treatments' I've witnessed," Heero replied coldly.   
  
"We don't have as much time for long tales as you seem to think," Milliardo informed him. "Duo has a leg locator. The government will find out he is here. Senator Santoro did escape. I'm sure that he will tell some tale that will take me some time to refute. He is a powerful man. There are many in the government who fear him and his influence in the army. While I am defending my actions, and making him defend his, it is possible that the government will order Duo taken into custody."  
  
"They can try," Heero replied with a deadly tone.  
  
That made Milliardo furious. "Where will you run too? The government is in alliance with the Colonies now. If you manage to get into Space, they will have you returned. It is much better to bring our case to the court and prove that Duo was being given more than sedatives. I have the pills and their government labels. I know where they were manufactured. It's proof positive that Santoro, and Duo's enemies, won't be able to argue against."  
  
"You still need to explain how you are able to recognize the pills," Heero demanded. "They are just coded bottles."  
  
Another long silence and then Milliardo admitted, "I recognize the code. They all begin with S.A.C.I. P. and then their lot number. The letters stand for Silent Assassin Combination Inhibitors. It was meant for eliminating enemies in unreachable positions in such a way that it wouldn't cause suspicion. The idea was to plant a doctor on a target's staff and then to slowly administer the inhibitors until they incapacitated and killed the target. Duo's dose was reduced so that it would take years instead of months..." Milliardo coughed as if suddenly overwhelmed and trying to cover it up. "Whoever made that decision... I can't think of a punishment strong enough for them."  
  
"Then you don't know who's behind it?" Heero asked, jumping on that statement. "It's not Santoro, the man who attacked Quatre's estate?"  
  
"Santoro is an opportunist, nothing more," Milliardo explained. "The conspiracy goes much higher."  
  
"Explain."  
  
"Which point?"  
  
"Every point. Start from the beginning when Duo was arrested in bed with you. You do know that he doesn't recall much about that night?"  
  
"No, I did not know that," Milliardo replied angrily. Duo heard cloth rustle and then the sound of someone, presumably Milliardo, pacing the floor. "I tried to seduce him early on in the evening, but....," Milliardo voice became even more angry and Duo thought that he heard hurt as well. "He kept talking about you. He hoped that you would show up at the party. When you didn't, I was glad. I thought that I could make him see that I was the better man."  
  
Heero ground out tightly, "Duo was only fifteen!"  
  
"I wasn't much older," Milliardo snapped back, "You can't make the argument that he was a child. We are all killers. Soldiers. Men who never had childhoods. What better company than each other?" Duo heard him make an impatient noise. "Let us not argue about that. Suffice to say, you didn't attend the party and the field was left open to me. If it hadn't been for my bothersome sister, Relena, I would have convinced Duo easily. As it was, by the time I was able to shake her off, he was gone to the front foyer to wait like a kicked dog for you. I'm not a fool. I saw that it was more than a quick roll in the sheets that he wanted. He wanted your heart, not mine."  
  
"He waited.... at the door... for me?" Heero's sounded sad, guilty. "I wanted to forget about the war. I didn't want to be given medals and paraded as a hero. I needed quiet, solitude, to find my place in peacetime. I never imagined that Duo hoped for so much from me." Heero's voice sounded resigned as he added, "I wasn't ready. I couldn't have given him anything then. I was right not to go."  
  
"Your logic was almost my triumph," Milliardo told him. "When you didn't appear, I suspect that Duo first became drunk and then angry enough to do drastic things. He showed up at my door, fell into my arms, and then tried to devour me alive. I didn't question my good luck. He threw off his clothes, rolled with me into the bed, and told me 'to take his cherry' because he didn't need to save it any more."  
  
Duo felt ready to die, wondering if a person could survive the kind of embarrassment, anguish, and guilt that he was feeling; a guilt made even worse when he heard Heero make a small, helpless sound that was quickly stifled.  
  
"I'm good," Milliardo bragged, as if he delighted in tormenting Heero. "I had him begging and shouting." There was a pause and then Milliardo admitted blackly, "But it wasn't me he wanted. He shouted your name, not mine."  
  
There was dead silence and then Heero chuckled. It was half triumph, half strangled pain. "His heart is mine, not yours," he said, "and I intend to take very good care of it from now on. If you're helping him because of some hope of-"  
  
Milliardo swore and Duo could see him in his mind's eye glaring with ice blue eyes at Heero in outrage. "I'm a better man than that! I am an honorable man. I won't stand by and let this wrong be perpetrated any longer. My love for Duo is beside the point. I am through allowing the Alliance to be corrupted in this way."  
  
"You are not done with your explanation of events," Heero prompted, "As it is, taking advantage of Duo when he was drunk does not say much for your 'honor'."  
  
"I was young," Milliardo retorted defensively, but then guiltily, "I made many wrong choices back then."  
  
"Are there more?" Heero demanded.  
  
"Yes," Milliardo admitted. "Security interrupted Duo and I and they arrested him. I was taken to Relena. She called her advisors together, fearing a scandal, and I was told, in no uncertain terms, that if I did not step back from the situation, and forget that I had ever heard the name Duo Maxwell, then I would find myself accused of the same crime and punished accordingly."  
  
"Relena!" Heero said in such a way, that Duo felt his blood chill.  
  
"Well, don't be too harsh on her," Milliardo quickly said.   
  
"She hardly had a choice. The Alliance was still unformed and her position and power to make that happen was being threatened by me and by my association with Duo. She couldn't lose credibility by having a brother who was on the verge of being outed as an anti- unification sympathizer and... well, a Gundam pilot's love interest. To distance us both from the scandal, she gave Duo over to the Senate. Unfortunately, they had their own game of intrigue in play. Duo fit nicely with their plans. They were glad to put him on trial."  
  
"Why?" Heero wondered.  
  
"It seemed to me that they wished to discredit the war and those that had participated in it," Milliardo explained. "They feared the power such heroes could engender. They feared popular support that might make them leaders. They wanted to protect the new government from coup attempts by such people. Duo was the perfect poster child for their campaign. They orchestrated his downfall, his disgrace, and his debauchery. They made that disgrace last as long as possible, so that they could have years of pointing at him and saying, 'That's what the war does to a man. Don't make such men heroes. Look to us for leadership, not them.' Their plan worked perfectly."  
  
"Where does Santoro fit into this?"  
  
"An old enemy from the war," Milliardo explained. "He had a run in with Duo that scarred his face. His need for revenge, and his hatred of the Alliance, made him climb to power to avenge himself and to secretly gather anti - Alliance soldiers. Proving that to the Senate will be difficult though, in light of the fact that, once again, they are being given an opportunity to smear and prosecute war heroes. It will be hard for me to prove that Santoro's military action against you was unjustified as well. Your reputations make such overkill seem reasonable."  
  
"The pills," Heero prompted. "You still haven't explained how you know about them."  
  
"The idea for their invention came from me," Milliardo admitted softly. "I was given the position of overseeing their development and implementation. The small factory that produced military chemicals and drugs was ordered to report to me. They continued to do so, even after the war, since they had never been absorbed into less deadly pharmaceutical pursuits. I wasn't aware that the staff there was still experimenting with new drugs and chemicals until I began to receive reports on their findings. I put a stop to it, of course, and reduced the staff to inventory control until the Senate could make a decision about the destruction of those materials. I never imagined that they would try to use the drugs themselves, until one of the dismissed scientists called me and told me that he had been tapped for his professional opinion on the matter. When an inventory clerk called me to sign off on an order for the drugs administered to Duo, I knew-"  
  
"But you didn't stop it!" Heero suddenly exploded.  
  
Duo wished that he could cover his ears, cringe, or protest in some way. He didn't want to hear any more about the people who had ruined his life. That knowledge wouldn't cure or save him. Milliardo had already said that he was still in the power of the Senate. He hadn't escaped them. At any time they could come for him and finish the job they had started and even Heero wouldn't be able to stand in their way.  
  
"I was powerless to stop it then, and I am powerless now," Milliardo admitted. "I can only petition the Court and appeal to the people."  
  
Heero said, harshly reminding Milliardo of the war and the great role of ordinary civilians in the colonies, "The people can be a very powerful force. If we gather proof of what the Senate has done, of the crime Santoro has committed, then we can publish it on the web, report it on the news, and go to the people. We can turn moral outrage into a weapon that the Senators will feel the sting of."  
  
"Perhaps," Milliardo replied bleakly, "but I think you are being an idealist. First, before we can attempt any of that, we must save Duo's life. I've told you all that I know. Trust me to help Duo."  
  
"I think you would anyway," Heero replied, "with my permission or without it and over my bullet riddled body."  
  
Duo could imagine a smile on Milliardo's face, a soldier appreciating the honesty of another soldier, as he replied, "You are absolutely right about that, but Duo cares for you, as much as I wish that he didn't, and I won't have him hating me for your death."  
  
"I don't have any choice, but to agree to your help, then," Heero said sourly.  
  
They were fighting over him. That fact sunk in after all of the other facts that Milliardo had imparted settled in Duo's mind. Duo couldn't believe it, almost chalked it up to a trick played by his drugged mind, but then, he reasoned in confusion, if that was false, then so was all that Milliardo had just said. Duo contemplated that as bodies moved around him and all conversation stopped. He supposed that Milliardo had gone.  
  
After a time, there were more voices. Strange ones. Heero replied to their murmured questions and then Duo felt the sting of needles pierce through his numbness and a tube snaked down his gagging throat. The shock of it's suddenness sent him swiftly down towards unconsciousness.  
  
Heero's voice caught Duo on the very edge of oblivion. Duo strained to hear the words even as his panicked mind shut down. "I'll be here waiting for you, Duo. Please, come back to me."


	19. Variations

"You must be able to do something for him?" begged Quatre's stricken voice.  
  
"I'm afraid not, Mr. Winner," a stranger's voice replied regretfully.  
  
"If it's money-"  
  
"Of course not, sir!" The voice sounded offended. "We do have standards of ethics. Captain Maxwell is simply not a good candidate for either hormone therapy or growth stimulation procedures. Implementing those types of procedures in his state of health might do more harm than good."  
  
"Might?" Quatre echoed.  
  
"Most probably," the man clarified. "He's simply too old, Mr. Winner."  
  
"I'm not certain how he will react to this news," Quatre said in concern.  
  
"He shouldn't be told at all, Mr. Winner," the man replied quickly. "The body can recover from amazing damage. It is possible that it may correct some things on it's own. Analyzing his percentage of disability, at this point, would be detrimental in the extreme to Captain Maxwell's psyche. He needs a positive attitude to help him to recover from the withdrawal treatments."  
  
"Thank you, Doctor Winston," Quatre sighed. "I think you are right. I will talk to the others. When he hears your diagnosis, Captain Yuy will probably agree with you as well."  
  
"Sir," the Doctor began carefully. "It isn't standard procedure to let a non relative make health decisions for a patient. If Captain Yuy had a Partner Contract with the boy, or even a statement from Captain Maxwell on file giving him the right to make decisions for him, I would feel better about this."  
  
"Captain Maxwell is not a boy," Quatre snapped back. "If you are so worried about his 'positive attitude' you'd better remember that. As for Yuy, they are very close, if you understand me, and Captain Maxwell's return to health is his top priority. He will make decisions that are in Captain Maxwell's best interest."  
  
"Yes, sir," the Doctor replied, but his voice was still colored by doubt.   
  
"I don't think that I have to remind you that our position here is tenuous at best," Quatre told him sternly. "Things may change at a moment's notice. Duo's treatment has to be concluded as soon as possible."  
  
Duo was through being a silent spectator. He struggled against numbness. Pride stung him. He would make his own health decisions, dammit! It pounded through his brain, that rebellion, and it gave him the push to open his eyes at last and to see what was going on around him.  
  
Duo blinked. His eyelids were crusty and his eyes felt dry. He had trouble focusing. Duo blinked more rapidly, getting his eyes to tear. When his vision cleared enough to see more than a blur, he saw that Quatre and the doctor had gone and that he was not in a hospital. He was surrounded by state of the art machines despite that fact. Solutions dripped slowly from suspended bags into his veins through long tubes and needles. With a small shiver of distaste and anxiety, Duo realized that a tube was down his throat as well and that something was attached to his nose to help him breathe.  
  
Duo pulled the tube out of his throat slowly, gagging and almost throwing up bile as he flung the thing away from him. "Told you, Yuy,"he rasped in a voice he hardly recognized as his own, wincing at the raw pain in his throat as he pulled off the breather tube as well, "tubes and breather machines aren't going to keep me alive!"  
  
"I expected this!" Heero exclaimed.  
  
Duo started. "Shit!" he grated. "Make some... make some noise next time, dammit!"  
  
"I tried to be here when you regained consciousness, knowing that the first thing that you would do was to try to damage the very things that were keeping you alive!"Heero growled as he reached for a button that would presumably call the nurse and a team of professionals who would, no doubt, force the tubes back into Duo. Duo caught Heero's hand and squeezed it with a strength that surprised them both, the strength of desperation.  
  
"Heero! Don't!" Duo lost his voice and frantically tried again, forcing the words out of his scraped raw throat. "Please, don't make me live like that!"  
  
Heero pulled his hand back from the button and settled on the edge of the bed, giving Duo a hard look. "It's only for a short time. When you are stable-"  
  
"That- that might not happen," Duo whispered. He let himself sink back into the pillows, drained, exhausted, and as limp as death. "Once in, they don't take them out again. You know that. I could go on for years..."  
  
"You are being foolish,"Heero growled, but he was taking Duo's hand in his and staring at it as he roughly caressed it. "I would say 'cowardly', but I know you better than that."  
  
Duo swallowed hard. "I'm glad that you do. C-Could I get a drink?"  
  
"Not advisable," Heero replied. "You haven't taken anything in, except intravenously, for over a week."  
  
"A week?"Duo blinked, confused. "What the Hell's been going on?"  
  
Heero smoothed Duo's fingers and made them curl around his own hand. "Milliardo Peacecraft saved us. He knew about the drugs and he knew where a withdrawal treatment could be obtained."  
  
Duo used his free hand to touch his nose. It was sore from the breathing tube. He wondered what he looked like. He felt thin and frail, ready to blow away. He couldn't ask everything that he wanted to know. His throat was too dry, his voice too uncertain. Instead, he kept it simple. First things first. "Doctor. Get him. Have him okay food and water."  
  
Heero nodded, but he didn't move. Duo pulled away his hand impatiently.  
  
"Do as I say," Duo told him and managed not to sound needy.  
  
"There are things that I have to tell you," Heero began.  
  
Duo shook his head. It made him dizzy. He shut his eyes again and said, "Later. Food and drink first.... and something for my throat. It hurts."  
  
"Duo, about the raid on Quatre's estate-" Heero persisted, but Duo cut him off again.  
  
"Doctor," Duo demanded.  
  
"Duo!" Heero exploded and Duo opened his eyes too look at him startled.  
  
Heero's blue eyes were shadowed and his face was hollow and pinched from worry and exhaustion. His chocolate hair was a mess, hanging in his eyes and making him look wild. He wore a simple green sweater and black pants. He looked like an ordinary, tired young man, not a war hero who had accomplished more in his short life than men three times his age.  
  
"What?" Duo asked softly, suddenly concerned.  
  
"You were... magnificent," Heero replied, much quieter, and his eyes glowed as he leaned over and kissed Duo softly on a sunken cheek. "Seeing you there, facing certain death, but standing firm to protect our old comrades... It made me love you even more."  
  
Duo blushed furiously and hardly knew how to respond. They stared at each other, Heero very close, and almost eye to eye with Duo. Duo struggled for a smart assed remark, an attempt to brush off that intimate declaration. He was uncomfortable with this gentle, well spoken romantic who didn't fit his mental picture of the old Heero Yuy.  
  
"I-," Duo licked dry lips, all out of smart assed sayings and evasions.  
  
"I guess I have to take another picture of you to match the new Heero."  
  
Heero frowned for a moment, confused, but then he was smiling gently in understanding. "Not new,"he replied, "Just buried deep for too long."  
  
"Well," Duo blushed again and fought a wave of weakness. "I hope you aren't expecting a lot out of me right now, but,"he cleared his throat and struggled to continue, "things might get serious in the future if I get better. Of course, your chances of that might get even better if you went to get me that Doctor."  
  
Heero looked disappointed as he stood up. "You used to be the one who always expressed his feelings."  
  
"That was before they stomped all over me and showed me that everyone is suspect!" Duo snarled without thought, just an outpouring of sudden anger at the world, at his weakness, at his inability to be what Heero deserved. He didn't want Heero to love him, he realized suddenly, and that was at the heart of his continuing reluctance to admit that he loved the man back, even though he did with all of his heart. It wasn't his surprise that Heero was showing his emotions that was confusing Duo but the clashing of his own emotions; love for Heero and contempt for himself doing battle with his tongue. This time, his contempt for himself had won out.  
  
Heero stiffened, but he was used to soldiers at the end of their strength. He knew better than to believe words born of pain and sickness. Still, Duo could see that he was hurt. It was in his voice as he said. "All right, I'll get you the Doctor, Duo. Try to rest while I'm gone."  
  
"Sure," Duo replied as he turned his face away and closed his eyes. Dumb ass! he called himself, and worse. Heero did deserve better than him!  
  
+  
  
"How long have you all been staring at me?" Duo wondered as he opened his eyes and found his comrades sitting about various parts of the plain, whitewashed room. Not entirely plain, Duo corrected himself. Aside from the many pieces of medical equipment, there was also a very large crystal vase of purple roses and white baby's breath. "All that's missing is Milliardo and his personal flower shop,"Duo added. It was the tenth such arrangement in under a few days, but the Prince of Sanq had not seen fit to follow them into his room just yet.  
  
"This is personal business," Heero replied. He was sitting closest to the bed, arms crossed over his chest, and he looked tense. He hated the flowers and he had taken barely undisguised pleasure in throwing them out each time Duo had asked him to.  
  
Duo looked at all of their tight expressions and felt uncertain. Boney hands gripping the blankets nervously, he asked, "I didn't do anything wrong did I? I know I said some pretty ugly things while I was getting off the drugs, but-"  
  
"Maxwell!" Wu Fei admonished, "It isn't always about you."  
  
Duo bit his lip and then found a soft laugh. "It usually is, Wu Fei, so you can't blame me. Well, what's going on now? War start again? The place falling down on our heads? Relena Peacecraft get a bind in her knickers?"  
  
Quatre covered a laugh behind a polite hand. Despite his muscles and tall stature, he could still, at times, revert back to the delicate, angelic boy he had been during the war. At that moment, he looked childishly embarrassed to have laughed.  
  
"It's about Quatre's estate," Heero cut in worriedly. "Wu Fei was able to get most of his staff to safety while we engaged the enemy and made ourselves decoys-"  
  
"Oh! So that's what was going on!" Duo realized with raised eyebrows. "I thought Trowa and Quatre had gone soft to get captured so easily and Wu Fei..."  
  
"What?" Wu Fei snapped, ready for offense.  
  
Duo smiled. "I knew you would be off protecting the weak. That's just who you are."  
  
Wu Fei relaxed and gave a small bow of his head, acknowledging Duo's words, but then he was saying, "They need protecting again. Some of them were captured and imprisoned as anti- unification rebels."  
  
"That can't be allowed," Trowa interjected. The tall, quite man stepped forward to put a hand on Quatre's broad shoulder. "Quatre and I will do whatever it takes to free them."  
  
"Even if we have to take the entire household and holdings into Space," Quatre added, blue eyes determined. "There are a few out stations that the Winners own that we can defend with some success."  
  
Duo looked at Heero. "You'll be going too?" When Heero only looked upset and didn't say anything, Duo answered his own question, "Of course, Quatre will need all the expert help he can get." He paused, swallowed in a dry throat and added, "I can't go."  
  
The drugs and the withdrawal had taken Duo to the edge of death and back. He had spent long days hallucinating, screaming, cursing, and weeping pathetically. Heero had stayed by his side though it all, encouraging Duo and helping to clean him up when ever the food he insisted on eating was violently ejected again or he simply couldn't control his shaking body any longer. Duo didn't need a doctor to tell him that his hold on life was still not a sure thing. The monitors attached to his arms and heart were still erratic, the tests they ran on blood and tissue still showing signs that his addiction had only been a small part of his problems. The g force of a shuttle lift off from Earth's punishing gravity would be the last coffin nail, Duo knew, if he attempted it.  
  
Duo wasn't bitter about being abandoned. He was bitter at the life that was necessitating that abandonment. He understood that Quatre needed to save his people. Duo had dedicated his life to saving people, had fought in the war and given up all hope of a peaceful youth in that cause. He wasn't about to balk now and do less when the freedom of so many people was contingent on him stepping out of the way of the people who were most capable of helping them.  
  
Duo tried for a smile. He knew he looked ghastly, skin stretched over bones, dark circles under his eyes, and skeletal hands lifting and making irritated shooing motions as he said in a rough voice, "Well, what are you waiting for? Get the hell out of here then and do what you have to. The government isn't playing by the rules. You can't play by them either or innocent people are going to get executed for treason."  
  
"I've talked to Sally Po and the Preventers," Heero told him. "They are willing to help us covertly. They'll station small ships as decoys while we escape Earth and they'll escort us to a Winner outpost station. Once there, we hope to move the station out of position and take up an orbit elsewhere. Hopefully, that will throw off pursuit and confrontation long enough for us to return and convince the people that their government has turned to self serving corruption."  
  
Wu Fei stood and walked to Duo's bedside. He glanced briefly at Heero and Heero looked away, scowling hard and knotting his fists together in his lap. Wu Fei sighed and met Duo's eyes. Duo had been a soldier too long to miss that his straw had come up short once again. "Maxwell," Wu Fei began and then, impatient with himself, he started again, "Duo, Milliardo will use his influence to have the prisoners transferred to a central holding station. Once there, we will attack and break them out of confinement. While that is happening, we will require a distraction of great proportions, one that will draw the troops away to another area."  
  
"Zechs is going to help?" Duo was incredulous, using Milliardo's war time alias. "I wouldn't trust him. He's a blue blood and he cares a lot about Relena and his position. I can't see him endangering himself for anyone."  
  
"He is minimizing his involvement," Quatre interjected with a bit of distaste. "You're right that he doesn't want to endanger his position. He'll confine himself to innocent paperwork shuffling to have the prisoners transferred."  
  
"He's also willing to hide you," Heero bit out and looked at Duo then, cobalt blue eyes full of fire, "After you create the diversion we need."  
  
"Oh," Duo said in a small voice. He thought about that information. It was still amazing to him that he could think clearly, and was thinking more clearly than he had since starting the pill regimen. With so little left of him, it seemed a miracle to him, a miracle he was thankful for as he returned Heero's look with intelligence and replied, "I'll do whatever I can. Those people need to be saved. You can count on me."  
  
Mission accepted. Duo settled back into his pillows, resigned as he had resigned himself to die for his cause so many times before during the war. It only hurt more now, and seemed more of a loss than it had been when he had only been an orphan of L2 and half crazy from losing everyone that he had ever loved.  
  
"I don't want to leave you," Heero declared softly, as if they were alone in the room. "But-"  
  
"We'll do what we have to do, Heero," Duo told him sternly, making his voice cold. "No entanglements, right? Back to business and only business."  
  
Heero reached out in concern and touched Duo's chin, making Duo look at him. "It's too late to think like that. I can say I'm sad, that I'm upset, and that I'm going to die a little for every day I worry about you and can't be here protecting you. I don't want to leave you with Zechs. I don't trust him. I don't want you to risk what bit of life you have left for anyone. I know that's selfish, but I can't help the way I feel. I have to go. I don't have to like it. I will come back and, if I don't find you alive and well when I do, the universe won't be big enough to hide Zechs and the damned government from my revenge!"  
  
Duo shivered under the emotional onslaught of Heero's words. He wanted to ask why? Why did Heero think so much of him that he could feel so strongly? Duo held back, though, knowing it would hurt Heero to doubt or question him now. He blinked back tears, glanced at the others in embarrassment, and found them, even Wu Fei looking at their feet or turned away to give them some privacy. Trowa had an arm about Quatre's broad shoulders and he had drawn the man close to him, whispering something comforting in Quatre's ear.  
  
"You have to go now? We have to do all of this now?" Duo wondered. "I can hardly stand on my own. What sort of diversion am I going to be able to create?"  
  
Heero's face tightened. It wasn't the response that he had hoped for to his declaration. Duo wondered how many times he would put his heart on his sleeve before he stopped doing it. Maybe it was this time, Duo thought, seeing something hard creep onto Heero's face.  
  
Duo licked dry lips, hating his uncertainty and his own self loathing. He reached out and took Heero's hand. He squeezed it hard and Heero blinked at him, hoping once again. "Remember," Duo said, "after I'm better, after this is over, we'll try to sort each other out. Give me the time, Heero. I need every minute of it, k?"  
  
It was as much as he could offer. Heero nodded stiffly and the hard look was replaced by the serious look of duty, of a soldier compartmentalizing and preparing himself to do what had to be done.  
  
"We've already drawn up a plan," Heero began and Duo listened in appreciation as Heero outlined his part in it.  
  
"Zechs will report that he has you in custody." Heero explained quietly.  
  
"The government knows that because of the leg locator, and Santoro has filed a report stating that Zech's is in league with us, but no one, as yet, has had the nerve to actually move against someone as important as a Peacecraft. Zechs assures us that is changing."  
  
"So," Duo guessed. "I'm going to pretend to kidnap Zechs as a hostage and run like a bunny from the government hounds?"  
  
Heero nodded. "Exactly. Such a move will remove suspicion from Zechs and force the government to deploy it's troops to find you. After the need for distraction has passed, you will then remove the locator and then 'disappear'. In reality, Zechs will hide you until we can return and stir up sympathy and popular support against the corrupt practices of the government."  
  
"Remove the locator?" Duo gave a sickly grin. "You make it sound easy."  
  
"They attach it to the leg bone, Heero," Quatre protested, not looking well at the thought of what removing such a device would entail for Duo. "You know that."  
  
"Zechs will have his staff doctor attend Duo," Heero replied impatiently. "There is little danger or possibility for pain. This won't be a field operation."  
  
Duo was only half relieved. He knew how a situation could deteriorate quickly and deviate from the plan. It was a necessary risk, though. He knew that he would remove the locator and make the mission successful, even if it meant taking it out with sticks and tweezers. The lives of Quatre's staff were going to depend on him not getting caught.  
  
Trowa reminded them all that he had been a mercenary most of his life when he assured Duo, "I'll pack you a med kit with anesthetics and pain tabs, just in case. One will knock you out if there is an emergency and the doctor is still with you, and the other will numb a large area in case you are alone and have to perform the operation yourself."  
  
"If I don't bleed to death, I can do it," Duo assured them. "I've done field operations pulling parts of my own Gundam and shrapnel out of myself. This can't be much worse, right?"  
  
"You have the courage, but do you have the will?" Wu Fei asked suddenly.  
  
"The will?" Duo echoed. It took him a moment to understand and then he nodded firmly. "I understand what you're asking, Wu Fei. I want to live," He looked at Heero briefly and then back at Wu Fei resolutely. "I have a reason, now. Don't be afraid that I'm going to lay down and die when things get tough."  
  
"We must leave,"Quatre said sadly. "It's terrible that we have to leave you like this, Duo."  
  
"Time to save the world again," Duo replied with a forced grin. "That's what we're good at, right?"  
  
"Right," Trowa replied and he was the first to file out of the room.  
  
Quatre followed, looking back at Duo with a soft, regretful expression.  
  
Wu Fei grunted, as if it were all nonsense, and said gruffly, "We will work on your lessons when I return, Maxwell. You are far from being proficient."  
  
"Love you too, Wu- man," Duo chuckled.  
  
Wu Fei scowled, but it didn't reach his eyes. He gave Duo a respectful nod and left the room as well. That left Heero and he was the one most reluctant to go.  
  
"Don't make this hard," Duo whispered. "Don't get all sappy on me. Not now. I don't think I'm up to it. We're soldiers first. We have to be."  
  
Heero was silent, considering, and then he said, "Tell me, before I go. I may- You know how things often fall out. We don't have the luxury of being naive. Just... say it, so I know it's true, that I'm not imagining it. You said it before, but you're a difficult person to understand and I don't know for certain whether you really meant it. So, once more, and then I'll go."  
  
Every fiber of Duo's being tightened. He crossed his arms over his narrow breast and shivered from reaction, the reaction of emotions he didn't know if he dared to show, if he was worthy enough to show to such a man as Heero Yuy. "What do you see in me?" Duo wondered at last, bitter, perhaps questioning Heero's sanity.  
  
Heero leaned close, lips almost touching Duo's ear. "The other half of my soul," Heero whispered.  
  
Duo turned his head and stared into Heero's fathomless blue eyes and then he was suddenly overwhelmed by emotion. He fell into Heero's arms, all resolve lost, all doubts and self disgust put aside in the need to be held, to feel a warm body hold and care for him one last time before, maybe, dying in an attempt to save others. Heero held Duo close, murmuring reassurances into Duo's ear as he kissed Duo's cheek, his neck, and his lips last of all in a devouring motion that showed that his need was as strong as Duo's.   
  
"I-I love you," Duo said throatily, embarrassed, unsure, but wanting that confirmation as much as Heero, maybe more. "You're so damn impatient, Yuy, but you're going to be late if you don't catch up with the others. Get the Hell out of here, and let me get on with my part of the job."  
  
"Duo," Heero slid a hand to the back of Duo's neck and kept his eyes locked with Duo's amethyst eyes. He wanted Duo to be sure of him and not to doubt him after he left. "I know you said that you needed time, but I know you meant you only needed time to convince me that I can't want you. That's not going to happen. I'm going to convince you, if it's the last thing I do, that I'm the one that's not worthy of you."  
  
Duo snorted and felt tears threaten. He made a pre-emptive wipe with the back of his hand across his eyes and growled, "The perfect couple,"he said bitterly, "Two people who don't deserve each other."  
  
"We _will_ be perfect," Heero insisted seriously, "Don't doubt that after I'm gone. Don't go back to thinking that I can't possibly love you. I do. You are worthy. You are beautiful to me. I will come back and make you see it too."  
  
Duo shoved at Heero, but he was gentle as he said seriously, "Yeah, sure thing Heero. You do that, come back to me and make me see things through your rose colored glasses. Promise?"  
  
Heero gave him one last kiss. Heero tasted of coffee and something cinnamon. It was that taste Duo would remember, he thought, and the way Heero's eyes glowed, trying to convince Duo by making them windows to his heart.  
  
"I will return," Heero promised.  
  
"I'll try to be waiting," Duo replied, more pessimistic.  
  
"You WILL be waiting," Heero insisted.  
  
Duo looked sheepish and mumbled, "Yeah, okay."  
  
Heero nodded and then he was gone like a wild shadow, as quiet as a breeze. Duo stared at the empty doorway and felt tears begin to choke him. He stifled them in the next instant when a familiar, tall, pale, blonde man leaned against the doorjamb and looked at him with ice blue eyes and an expression of pain.


	20. Chances

"I highly advise against this," the doctor protested. A short, graying, wide set, older man, he looked very concerned.  
  
"Noted," Milliardo grunted as he picked Duo up off the bed and carried him out of the room. He seemed unconcerned with the gun held to his head or Duo's determined expression. "I hope that your objection doesn't preclude you from attending Duo," Milliardo continued. " I would hate for him to suicide and take me with him. For now, I would like to do everything that he asks. He has asked for you to come along."  
  
"Yes, sir," the doctor replied, a little pale as he followed Milliardo down a hallway. He directed his next questions at Duo. "Where, exactly, will we be going? If you are intelligent, Captain Maxwell, and this stunt makes me doubt that, then I advise you to keep the trip short and Earth bound. You are only a step away from Death's door. It wouldn't take much to push you through it."  
  
Duo grinned, despite the way that the world was blurring in and out. He had been flat on his back for too long. The sudden upright position in Milliardo's arms was making him ill. "I am Shinigami," Duo replied. "Do what you're told and I won't have to convince you of that fact."  
  
The doctor became paler, but he didn't stop talking, even when they exited out onto the roof and climbed into Milliardo's personal transport vehicle. "Judging from the instruments you forced me to pack, I would guess that you intend for me to remove your leg locator. I will also lodge my disapproval of that as well. Leg locators are especially inserted into the bone. I am not trained, nor do I have the proper equipment, to remove it without laming you."  
  
"I'm just a damned anti-unification terrorist," Duo reminded him, "What's it to you whether I get hurt or not?"  
  
Milliardo settled Duo into a plush seat and buckled him in. Duo groaned at the unfamiliar pressure on his aching body, but his gun never wavered from Milliardo's head as the man slipped into a pilot's seat nearby, put on headphones, and began calling for clearance on the radio. He was using emergency codes.  
  
The doctor secured his medical bag and then sat in a seat opposite Duo.  
  
After strapping himself in, he gave Duo a level look. "I'm a doctor. That title means something to me. I won't let anyone suffer, not even a criminal." He looked Duo up and down and then added, "Besides, I think the government is guilty of a heinous crime against you. They gave you a medication used for assassinations, a drug that causes slow deterioration and painful death. Whatever you may have done, that punishment is beyond what anyone would deem civilized or lawful. That kind of behavior from our government threatens everyone, not just you."  
  
Duo didn't lower his gun. He had grown up with violence and trust wasn't his strong point. He nodded acknowledgement of the man's words, though, and the doctor relaxed somewhat, confident that he had gained a safer position with Duo.  
  
The cabin was both pressurized and sound proofed. There wasn't much besides the clouds outside the window to indicate that they had taken off. Duo allowed himself to relax then, knowing that Milliardo would take some time to play cat and mouse while Heero and the others escaped.  
  
Duo swallowed hard. "When I was 'sleeping' early on, I heard you, well, I think it was you, and Quatre talking," Duo began uncertainly. "You seemed to think that I didn't have any hope of becoming, 'normal'. Exactly... exactly what did you mean by that?"  
  
The doctor looked uncomfortable. "This should really wait until you are with a counselor," the doctor started to reply, but then he looked around him and sighed, "but, I suppose that isn't going to happen soon, if at all. Still, I don't want to make an early prognosis. I'm not completely familiar with the dynamics of the drug combination you were given. I could be mistaken. I don't want you to worry or be depressed over something needlessly."  
  
Duo was quiet, head lowered, bangs hiding his tense face, and then he said, "There's really only one thing I want to know and, I think, you can answer it. I know that I'm done growing. That can't be changed unless I fill my body with cyber parts. It still wouldn't look... right, though, so that's out. I have to live with being a short, scrawny guy. The important question is... the one that really matters is.... will I ever..." Duo stopped and put a hand to his mouth, unable to finish, unable to face a negative reply.  
  
The doctor let out a relived breath Duo hadn't known he'd been holding.  
  
He looked up and the doctor was smiling slightly, still nervous, but glad to give his bit of good news. "If you're asking about your hormone and testosterone levels, you don't have to worry. That is renewable. In fact, once you recover some strength, you should notice a marked change in how you feel both sexually and physically. You might gain some muscle and some body hair. You might even mature a bit more, though, I'm afraid, you shouldn't hold out hope for much improvement where it pertains to height."  
  
"So, no basketball career," Duo sighed in mock disappointment while he was grinning at the same time.   
  
The doctor was pleased to give good news, but he had an edge of pessimism as well. "It doesn't do you any good, Captain Maxwell, to know that you can please yourself and the ladies, if you permanently destroy your health, or even kill yourself, by acting unwisely."  
  
"It's not the ladies, I'm worried about pleasing," Duo replied, becoming reserved again as he glanced at Milliardo to make sure he was still following the plan. "And as for acting unwisely, you know what the government would have done if they had caught up with me. I don't think putting me on the drugs again was going to be an option. After the operation at Winner's estate, I'm labeled a full fledged anti-unification sympathizer. That merits the death penalty. You know that. I don't like turning tail and running, but I'd rather die free than by injection in a cell somewhere. If they want me, they'll have to take me down where everyone and God can witness it."  
  
The doctor thought about that and then he pulled up his bag and began checking his instruments. "Where will we operate on your leg? Do you have a hospital in mind, or a clinic, perhaps?"  
  
"Neither," Duo replied. "In fact, as soon as we find a surface that doesn't move, you're operating."  
  
The doctor's eyes widened. He looked frightened. "But that's unsanitary! The infection possibilities... I have to cut to the bone, Captain Maxwell..." He licked nervous lips and then nodded when he saw that Duo's expression wasn't naive of the possibilities. The doctor admitted, "I was a field surgeon during the war. I never thought that I would have to deal with that again." He firmed and began going through his bag again. "I will do my best, Captain Maxwell. I hope it will be enough."  
  
Duo looked out of the window, expression tight as he replied, "I do, too."  
  
Duo fell asleep. He tried to fight it, but the slight vibration of the ship, and the quiet boredom, took their toll. When he woke again, he could hear the doctor talking anxiously to Milliardo.  
  
"Sir, he is exhausted and not likely to wake. I don't understand why you won't take this opportunity to take control."  
  
Milliardo replied, as if revealing a personal, embarrassing secret. "He is a Gundam pilot, Doctor, and highly trained. I am not a match for his skill."  
  
The doctor was confused. "Captain Maxwell should be in intensive care, hooked up to fluids, antibiotics, and protein solutions. He is unable to stand for more than a few moments. I don't understand what danger he could possibly represent to you."  
  
There was a silence and then Milliardo replied. "All right, Doctor, I must admit to you that I am a complete coward. It's fear that keeps me from overpowering him and winning our freedom."  
  
Another silence and then the Doctor said carefully, "Sir, for a politician, you are a terrible liar."  
  
Duo snorted laughter as he opened his eyes and saw Milliardo's amused expression. "You didn't expect a doctor to be an idiot, did you, Zechs?" Duo wondered softly.  
  
Milliardo frowned, but his lips were still smiling as he checked their altitude and adjusted a control. "No, I didn't, but I had hoped for an understanding one."  
  
"I suppose I am that," the doctor replied and settled into his seat again. He reached across the space between himself and Duo without hesitation and took hold of Duo's wrist. After taking Duo's pulse, he nodded, pleased. "The rest was good for you."  
  
"I do feel better," Duo replied. He refrained from yawning and tried to appear more alert than he was. The gun was a heavy weight. He rested it in is lap, not willing to drop his guard completely.  
  
"I'm amazed," the doctor admitted.  
  
Duo was puzzled. "By what? My nerve?"  
  
"That too," the doctor replied, "but mostly I'm amazed by your stamina."  
  
Duo smiled. "I spent a few years living hand to mouth on the street. You learn not to whimper about your circumstances there and, unless you want to die, giving up isn't an option. I learned to endure there, Doc. I learned to be tough as nails."  
  
The doctor nodded. "It shows."  
  
"Company!" Milliardo called back to them.  
  
"What?!" Duo stiffened, his grip on his gun tightening unconsciously. "What the Hell happened? You were supposed to keep them guessing for a few more hours, 'Lightning Count'!" Duo said Milliardo's nickname in disgust.  
  
Milliardo shot him a hard look. "Duo, you have a homing device inside of you! It was inevitable that they would find us."  
  
"Not this soon, though!" Duo snapped back. He reached down and began unlacing his boot. The doctor's eyes widened in dawning horror. "Change of plans, Doc," Duo told him briskly. "Start cutting."  
  
"You can't be serious!" the doctor protested. "I'll be using a laser. One wrong move of the ship and I might cut half your leg off!"  
  
"Then do it the old fashioned way!" Duo snarled as he rolled up his pants leg. "Cut, or the last thing you're probably going to see is a government beam cannon cutting through this ship. They may not bother with the nicety of taking us alive."   
  
"You'll be lame; a cripple maybe," the doctor protested one last time.  
  
Duo shouted at the top of his voice, "Do you think I give a flying fuck about that?! People's lives are counting on me. I'm not going to let them die so I can keep a leg!"  
  
The doctor swallowed hard and nodded. He was already sweating and going pale as he pulled up his bag and crossed the space between them. He settled onto the floor and began placing his instruments beside him in a particular order. "Keep the ship as steady as possible," he told Milliardo.  
  
"I can't promise that, but I will do what I can," Milliardo replied. He glanced back at Duo, looking very tense, and then he turned back to the controls as if he couldn't bear to watch. It wasn't out of squeamishness, Duo knew, and recalled again the conversation he had over heard between Milliardo and Heero. Had it been real or a fever dream?  
  
Duo took up the small kit that Trowa had packed for him. He fished around inside until he found the pills he was looking for. Putting them into his mouth, and biting into them to break their casings, he then swallowed them determinedly. "Start," he ordered, staring off into the distance and trying to find the place down deep inside of himself where his greatest strength lay.  
  
The doctor cleaned off an area on Duo's ankle and then he marked it off with a pen. The pen was trembling ever so slightly. "What did you just take?"  
  
"Meds to numb me to pain," Duo replied distantly.  
  
"I have pain medication," The doctor retorted, incensed.  
  
"Not like these," Duo replied, giving him a hard look. "I need to be numb, yet able to move if I have to."  
  
"Pain blockers?" The doctor winced. "Those are dangerous."  
  
"What isn't in a life like mine?" Duo replied bleakly as he settled back into his chair and braced himself. "You don't have much time. Cut the locator out now."  
  
Duo felt the cut. He gritted his teeth as blood ran down onto the floor. A whimper escaped his lips involuntarily. The meds hadn't kicked in completely and, even if they had, they wouldn't cut out the pain entirely. When another whimper exploded from his lips, Duo jammed his hand into his mouth and used his thick coat to bite down on.  
  
Every instinct told Duo to get away, to use the gun, to stop that cutting knife going deep into his ankle. It took all of his willpower to hold still, to deny the fear/flight response that threatened to overwhelm him. Tears of pain ran hotly down his trembling face as Duo chanted his mantra and tried to employ Wu Fei's meditation techniques. It was a distraction that he sorely needed and, even though the pain didn't lessen, Duo felt a steady calmness fill his mind, enabling him to bear it better.  
  
"This is inhuman!" The doctor swore as he began using another instrument, one that cut and pulled at something embedded into Duo's bone. "Bastards! They put two anchors in instead of one! They weren't taking any chances!"  
  
The meds began helping with the horrible pain, but the pain was rising to where Duo knew he was about to begin screaming. When his hand tightened convulsively on the gun, he put it out of reach. He had to trust the doctor now. He was powerless to do anything but endure.  
  
"Hurry!" Milliardo shouted. "I'm running out of cloud cover and I can only dodge in and out of mountain ranges so long before we get smacked down by wind currents."  
  
"Just fly the fucking plane and let me do my job!" the doctor snarled back.  
  
"Yes, sir!" Milliardo replied sarcastically, "but I won't have a plane to fly much longer if we keep this up."  
  
The doctor suddenly stood up and turned so that he was sitting in Duo's lap. Duo blinked, startled and confused. The pressure of the doctor's weight held him pinned, almost cutting off his breath, as the doctor leaned back down to his leg and began tugging and cutting in earnest. Duo shrieked and thrashed as the pain lanced through meditative state and medication. He fought against the doctor's weight. He would have used his deadly skill to kill the doctor, if the man had presented him with a target. As it was, with the doctor bent down, all vulnerable points were out of Duo's reach.  
  
"Shit!" the doctor cursed, and then again, "SHIT!!!! How could they do this! They put bio cement in the holes! They never meant the locator to come out!"  
  
The plane leveled and Milliardo slapped on the auto pilot. Unbuckling himself from his seat, he moved to crouch by Duo's leg. As Duo passed in and out of a red, throbbing haze, he heard Milliardo say, "Damage the locator with your laser. It's not coming out."  
  
"But the possibility of infection, deterioration..." the doctor replied, stunned.  
  
"Can't be helped!" Milliardo snapped back. "Do it!"  
  
Milliardo went back to the controls. The doctor took up his laser.  
  
"Please, Captain Maxwell," he begged, "don't move. I don't want to accidentally cut through your leg. The locator has a laser proof shell, so I can't cut through it, but I may be able to damage the booster on the outside. With that gone, they will only be able to track you at close range."  
  
"F-F-Finish, pleeeasse!" Duo whimpered. "J-Just.... finish!"  
  
"I'd knock you out, and damn to your distrust," the doctor muttered, "but if we have to land quickly or fight, I'm a soldier enough to know that you'll need all of your wits."  
  
"Yesss," Duo breathed in agreement.  
  
The doctor was quiet. The ship shuddered under the impact of an updraft. Duo tightened fearfully, knowing that the laser could cause considerable damage and he wouldn't feel a thing. Duo hardly dared to breathe until the doctor stood up, turned, and began cleaning up the cauterized incision with antiseptics. Duo sighed in relief as he saw his ankle, swollen and ugly, yet still attached to his leg.  
  
"A-All right, Lightning Count," Duo stuttered through the pain. "Time- Time t-to show what y-you've got. Lose 'em!"  
  
"With pleasure," Milliardo replied and the ship banked sharply. G forces climbed as he left their pursuers behind.  
  
Duo didn't remember much of the long ride. He was curled in around himself in his chair, clutching his leg and panting through wave after wave of pain. More than once the doctor begged him to take something for it. Each time, Duo shook his head emphatically no. He kept his eyes on Milliardo, willing the man to be successful.  
  
"Rendezvous point coming up," Milliardo announced. "Pack up, gentlemen, we're going to be in a hurry. I have ground troops ready to hide the plane and a transport ready to take us out of the area."  
  
Duo nodded and the doctor gathered up his bag, looking nervous. "How long will I be with you?" the doctor asked.  
  
Duo considered the man that they had plucked out of his posh position at Milliardo's estate house. "Do you have a family?" he croaked, barely able to voice the words.  
  
"Yes, but they didn't live with me," the doctor replied. "It will be some time before they notice that I am missing."  
  
"If you want me to make some sort of promise, a guarantee that you'll be with them again-" Duo began.  
  
"Don't bother," the doctor grunted as he looked out of the window and tried to see in what kind of place they would be setting down in. "I don't need to be reassured by promises that you can't keep."  
  
"I'm sorry," Duo sighed.   
  
"Why?" the doctor replied with an arched eyebrow. "It seems to me that the one to blame is the government and certain forces taking advantage of the situation." His expression firmed. "At least this time I'm fighting for the right side."  
  
"Landing!" Milliardo called back. "Brace yourselves!"  
  
There was a solid thump that sent Duo rocking in his seat and then the rattle and klink of metal buckles being thrown off as Milliardo released himself from his seat hurriedly and then crouched to do the same with Duo.  
  
"Let me take him!" The doctor urged as he pushed Milliardo aside. "You take care of what ever's waiting for us outside."  
  
"But..." Milliardo began to protest about the doctor's age and his ability to carry Duo's weight.  
  
The doctor scoffed irritably. "He doesn't weigh much over ninety pounds. I think I can handle that! I'm not that old or out of shape!"  
  
Milliardo conceded his place. Hooking his bag over one arm, the doctor picked Duo up as if he were a child and quickly proceeded to the hatch as Milliardo opened it, gun twitching this way and that for enemies.  
  
Some of Milliardo's personal troops met them at the bottom of the ramp, snapping smart salutes. Milliardo began shouting orders at them at once, and they scrambled to obey without question, as Duo and the doctor followed Milliardo across an expanse of overgrown runway and past a few dilapidated outbuildings.  
  
Duo saw steaming jungle all around them, encroaching like a many tentacled beast of green to engulf what was left of the old military runway. South America? Africa? Mexico? Duo couldn't tell from so few clues. There was the smell of salt air and a few lonely seagulls drifting on a hot breeze. A coastal runway made sense, especially in a jungle setting. Supplies and troops could move in an out by boat.  
  
"We're going out on the water?" Duo wondered sharply. "That's a crappy place to hide, Zechs!"  
  
"Patience!" Milliardo snapped back.  
  
"Be still!" the doctor warned. "It will be easier for you and me."  
  
Duo kept quiet then, but his hand held his gun and his eyes strained to see through a haze of pain. A confusion of men and vehicles seemed to be in constant motion around them, machinery roaring and men shouting and tossing equipment about. It looked very chaotic and unprepared.  
  
"Zechs...," Duo began to protest, not liking what he was seeing at all.  
  
"Patience!" Milliardo snapped again.  
  
They were almost to a covered transport vehicle, grouped with many others exactly like it, when bullets started popping all around them, splattering the ground and pinging into the metal of the vehicles themselves.  
  
It was as if everything suddenly went into slow motion. Duo blinked and howled in pain while at the same time grasping at the doctor in horror and disbelief as the man turned sharply, presenting his back to the oncoming bullets and hunching over Duo's body in his arms. There were sickening splats and the doctor jerked and staggered, his grip tightening on Duo as he took a few steps towards the vehicles. Milliardo already had his hand on a bottom rung of a ladder on the back of one, intending to swing up and inside, glancing back to check on their progress.  
  
The doctor fell. Duo landed hard on pavement, every fiber of his body screaming at the impact against his back and the jolt to his ankle. He dragged himself up despite that, pushing at the doctor's suddenly dead weight... dead weight, Duo saw, because the doctor was very dead. His eyes were open and staring at nothing.  
  
The world swirled in a red fog. Duo panted and trembled, but managed to reach out and gently closed the man's eyes. "Sorry," he whispered just before Milliardo was jerking him up into his strong arms and tossing him into the truck.  
  
Duo landed hard and rolled, shrieking in pain as Milliardo threw himself in after with a flailing of limbs and shouted, "GO!!!" to whoever was driving. Duo rolled again as the truck took off, but Milliardo was grabbing him and pulling him close.  
  
Duo realized that he was sobbing in reaction while he continued to scream in pain as Milliardo put his back to the wall of the truck and held him tight. He anchored Duo, giving him a haven of flesh and warmth, while he whispered the lie that everything was going to be all right.


	21. Knights

"I'm okay," Duo muttered. "You can let go of me."  
  
"Yes," Milliardo responded absently, but didn't move to release Duo from his embrace.  
  
"You're humoring me," Duo accused.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Cut it the Hell out!"  
  
"What would you rather hear me say?"  
  
Duo was leaning back against Milliardo's chest, supported between the man's knees. Milliardo's arms hung loosely over his shoulders to brace him against the sharp jogs of the moving vehicle. It was dark, very little light coming through the flap covering the back of the vehicle. Duo had to imagine Milliardo's expression of irritation; that mass of pale blonde hair falling over a handsome face and his ice blue eyes narrowed.  
  
"You can admit that our chances of getting away are zero," Duo replied at last. "We aren't escaping trained troops in a truck. I can take the truth."  
  
"I'm not such a defeatist," Milliardo told him. "There were many trucks on the runway, all identical. They were ordered to drive in every direction. The government troops won't sort out the decoys for some time. We may escape before that happens."  
  
"Escape where?" Duo scoffed. "If you're going to tell me out to sea, I'm going to give up and shoot myself right here. It won't work."  
  
"I have a plan," Milliardo replied, "and it doesn't involve putting out to sea. Instead, I intend to hide in plain sight."  
  
"Heero thought that he could do that too," Duo replied waspishly. "I didn't have the heart to tell him that they had splashed his photo, along with mine, on the front of a few rag magazines. He'd be shocked by the things that they reported as fact. It had something to do with a pony and a bottle of scotch, as I recall. Point being, Zechs, that, with our hair, I doubt that we could ever `blend' in anywhere."  
  
Milliardo didn't argue and he didn't clarify his plan. Instead, his breath was suddenly warm on Duo's ear as he asked, "Do you love him?"  
  
Duo swallowed hard and admitted, "Yeah, I do."  
  
"No chance that you would-"  
  
"No, no chance, sorry."  
  
It was a blunt rejection, but Duo didn't want any ambiguity. He hoped it wasn't about to cost him Milliardo's help. The man's hands had flattened on his chest, fingers digging in slightly. Duo felt the tickle of the man's hair against his cheek.   
  
"You still don't lie, do you?" Milliardo observed and his voice sounded sad.  
  
"I try very hard not to," Duo replied, still waiting for the axe to fall.  
  
"I'm glad that there are still men in the world who have some honor left," Milliardo sighed. His body shifted backwards and his muscles relaxed. "I need to sleep before we are forced to leave the truck behind."  
  
"Go ahead," Duo replied uneasily. "I'll move over there."  
  
Duo had indicated a pile of duffel bags and camouflage netting. He was annoyed when Milliardo awkwardly took them both to the pile and stretched them both out on top of it. He tucked Duo back into his arms and said, "I thought that I had lost the government troops, but they were able to find us and attack the air strip. I may be wrong about this as well. They may find us easily. I need to be rested and ready to fight and run."  
  
"Zechs..." Duo began in warning. He had lost his gun in the chaos of the airstrip. He was defenseless.  
  
"I have honor," Milliardo whispered wearily, guessing Duo's thoughts. "I'm holding you so that you don't roll about the truck and harm yourself. You need the sleep as well. You've lost blood. You were given an operation under terrible circumstances. You also witnessed the death of-"  
  
"Don't!" Duo breathed in anguish. "I-I can't think about that right now, okay? I-I need to stay focused...."  
  
"You need to rest," Milliardo stressed again. "Trust me."  
  
"I don't have any choice," Duo replied in helpless anger.  
  
"You are a soldier," Milliardo reminded him, as if he were talking to an insubordinate underling. "You can't afford to react to any of this right now. I know your training as a Gundam pilot far exceeded anything I've experienced. Use it. Compartmentalize. We can't be-"  
  
"Don't give me bullshit!" Duo exploded. "I know how you feel about me!"  
  
"Maybe you were drunk that night long ago at Quatre's party," Milliardo replied softly, deciding to be truthful, "and maybe you did think that it was Heero you were with and not me, but you are with me now and I am determined to help you. If being close to you like this is an unintentional reward, then I will take advantage of it, I'm afraid, and every other opportunity that arises to be close to you."  
  
Duo trembled, disgusted and afraid of what Milliardo intended and hating himself for being too weak to even try to get out of the man's arms. He remembered some of that night at the party, flashes of a hot tongue searching his mouth, hotter hands sliding under his clothes, and a body moving against his, eager, urgent, and ready to take what Duo had offered like a drunken whore. Duo hadn't thought of Milliardo as being Heero. Perhaps he had when things had become hot and heavy and the drink had sunk his senses into confusion, but at the beginning, Duo had wanted the hands of the handsome `Lightning Count' on him and his raging teenage libido had wanted to be rid of virginity.  
  
It was different now that he was sober and older. Milliardo was still sexually enticing and very handsome, but Duo's libido was nonexistent and his mind needed more than sex. It cringed at the very thought of giving to Milliardo what he had hoped to save for Heero. He knew thoughts like that were outside the norm for a man his age, who would have had sex with dozens of partners gladly and not given a second thought to such feminine ideals as 'saving one's virginity for love', but Duo didn't have the luxury of a fully operational sex drive. His mind wasn't clouded by 'need'. He didn't want Milliardo to be his 'first'. He wanted that to be Heero.  
  
A soft snore alerted Duo to the fact that all of his anxiety had been for nothing. Milliardo, far from being a plundering opportunist, had wanted something simpler from Duo; physical contact, not actual sex. Duo would have laughed if he wasn't in such pain and suffering the greater pangs of guilt and sadness over the death of the doctor. He thought about slipping out of Milliardo's arms, taking the man's gun, and taking back some control of what was going on around him, but Duo found himself closing his eyes instead, lulled by Milliardo's soft breathing and steady heartbeat. The operation, the blood loss, and the shock of the doctor's violent end took it's toll. Instead of winning his freedom, Duo fell asleep as well.  
  
The time that Duo was asleep felt shorter than a blink, but Duo's stiff body told him that he had been sleeping much longer. He sat up, eyes tearing and breath catching in a groan as his leg scraped against rough netting. Clutching at his ankle, Duo tried to bring his mind into focus.  
  
He was alone on the makeshift bed, but Milliardo wasn't far away. The truck had stopped and Milliardo was leaning out of the truck, the back flap raised, and speaking with someone, probably the driver.  
  
"Understand?" Milliardo asked loudly enough for Duo to hear.  
  
"Yes, sir!" was the sharp, confident response.  
  
Milliardo dropped the flap of canvas and returned to Duo in darkness. He placed clothes in Duo arms and said, "Put these on."  
  
Duo felt a heavy knit sweater, a cap, thick soled shoes, and a loose pair of pants. "They must know what's going on by now," Duo said as he began changing without question, glad that it was too dark to worry about Milliardo seeing him naked. "Jeez! These clothes stink like fish!"  
  
Milliardo was changing as well, and Duo uncomfortably began to imagine what Milliardo looked like nude. At Quatre's party, he couldn't recall if the man had taken off his clothes and that absence of memory bothered him. "You are wondering why my men don't turn us in to the government?" Milliardo asked.  
  
Duo blushed as he sat with the second shoe in his hands, not about to tell Milliardo what he had actually been thinking about. "Yeah, why don't they?"  
  
"They are refugees from the destruction of the Sanq kingdom," Milliardo replied tightly, voice betraying that he was thinking of something unpleasant. "They have every reason to mistrust governments and every reason to follow me. I am their Prince, after all."  
  
"Oh," was all Duo could find to say. He knew what it was to follow blindly. He had followed Dr. G's orders without question throughout the war. He could understand dedication like that.  
  
"Are you having trouble?" Milliardo wondered.  
  
"The shoe... I'm not sure it's going to go on. My ankle and upper foot are swollen," Duo replied.  
  
Milliardo's hands found his ankle. They were gentle as they felt how large the swelling was. "It's not abnormally swollen. I don't think that there are complications, but there might be after such a dangerous field operation."  
  
"The Doc was good," Duo whispered and fought back a wave of guilt. Not now, he told himself, later, when he was safe and could afford to hate himself. Unconsciously deciding that he needed a distraction, and some punishment to assuage his growing anxiety over the doctor's death, Duo took hold of the one shoe with both hands and then jammed it onto his foot.  
  
The world came back into focus again after a pain filled few minutes. Duo heard himself gasping and felt Milliardo gripping him tight. "What the Hell was that?!" the man demanded.  
  
Duo pulled away roughly, but it was hard to sit up, harder still to lace the shoe with shaking hands and questionable mental faculties. "Had to be done," he grated. "We need to get out of here. Mind telling me the plan now?"  
  
"We are now fisherman." Milliardo replied simply.

Duo hissed in anger. "I told you, no boats! They're sitting ducks! Any flying transport or satellite can see them."  
  
"A boat suddenly traveling away from the coast, all alone, would be suspect," Milliardo agreed, "but that's not the plan. I have an acquaintance who owns a fishing fleet. Every few days, they go out, fish, and then sail back in to port. We are getting on one of the boats and going out with the rest. We'll hide among the men until the government troops decide that we've given them the slip and then we'll take transport to another safe location."  
  
"The leg locator-" Duo began.  
  
"Is only effective at close range now, " Milliardo reminded him. "A plane doing a low fly over might be able to pick up something, but a fishing vessel has enough radar and radio equipment to at least partly jam the locator's signal. We are taking a chance, but we don't have any options at this point."  
  
Duo was incredulous. "Did you come up with this stupid plan at your estate or did you scribble it on the back of a piece of toilet paper just now, because it sounds like a bunch of crap!"  
  
Milliardo was seething and silent. He let Duo stew in that silence, let him feel his helplessness, his dependency, and his lack of a better plan, before he asked, "Ready to go?"  
  
Duo flushed, knowing that he had to do whatever Milliardo ordered. He didn't have a better plan. He didn't know where they were. He didn't have the strength to go anywhere on his own. "Yeah," Duo replied angrily, "Ready."  
  
Milliardo scooped him up as if he weighed as much as a feather, muscled arms flexing and showing his strength, as he carried Duo to the opening of the truck and gracefully slid out and onto the ground. Kicking the fender of the truck, the vehicle pulled away at once as if it were a signal. Duo never saw the drivers. In the light of day, Duo blinked and ducked his head, eyes stinging, as he tried to shade them with the brim of his dirty cap.   
  
"Hair," Milliardo warned and Duo tucked his braid into the back of his sweater to hide it, certain Milliardo had already hidden his own trademark length. "The men are loyal," Milliardo explained, "but we should still go as incognito as possible. " A soldier's mistrust. A man learned to develop it early on in his career or he didn't live long.   
  
"So," Duo said as Milliardo began a smooth stride through a sparse stand of trees, "We're going to be hauling nets and gutting fish? I'm not in real good shape to do that, Zechs. Won't people grow suspicious to see a crew member in their bunk instead of working?"  
  
"You are ill and you had an accident," Milliardo explained as he told Duo his cover. "It will have happened after we put out to sea."  
  
Duo wanted to bang his head against Milliardo in frustration. "How plausible is that cover going to be when we return with a haul and then set out again?"  
  
"We will put out that you are the lover of the captain," Milliardo replied in a deadpan, "and so good in bed that he is loathe to be separated from you even though you are useless as a crew member."  
  
"Don't you fucking dare!" Duo ground out angrily.  
  
Milliardo scowled down at him. "Where's your dedication, your self sacrifice for the cause?" He shook his head, giving up his mockery suddenly and saying more seriously, "You want absolutes, Duo. You didn't have them in the war. What makes you think you're going to get them now?"  
  
Duo was quiet, feeling the sting of that criticism. His weakness was making him stupid, he thought, and he replayed his own words in his head. He hated himself when he realized that he had been sounding like a whining child.  
  
"Sorry," Duo said stiffly.  
  
"Understandable," Milliardo replied, "but not acceptable."  
  
"I just need to rest, really rest, where it's safe enough to take painkillers" Duo sighed, "and I really need..."  
  
"What?" Milliardo prompted, concerned suddenly.   
  
Duo blushed uncomfortably. "I hate to ask."  
  
Milliardo snapped impatiently almost fearfully, "If you require something important, Duo, please tell me at once!"  
  
"Well," Duo blushed even deeper and then bit out in extreme embarrassment. "I need to pee, okay, and you have to help me do it!"  
  
Milliardo stared in shock and then he began to laugh.  
  
+  
  
The ship was larger than Duo expected, but, he supposed, the ship the captain was expected to live on and coordinate from would be more spacious than the norm. Duo and Milliardo were stowed away in a cabin no bigger than five paces square, the rough bed made with rougher bed sheets and blankets. It was luxury compared to the crew, who had to hole up together and take shifts sleeping.  
  
Duo was given the bed. He was never sure where Milliardo slept, whether on the floor, or somewhere else on the ship. He never asked and Milliardo didn't presume to curl up with Duo again. The intimacy of the truck was over.  
  
Duo spent several days slipping in and out of consciousness, pain lulled to a bearable throb by painkillers and his own exhaustion. He hardly said three words to Milliardo, simply accepted whatever help the man offered and the food the man brought to him.  
  
The sway of the ship reminded Duo of space. Far from being seasick he was, instead, able to relax in a way that he hadn't experienced for four years. Born and raised on a colony, the disorientation of the movement of a space station had formed his mental and physical matrix. He had never felt right in the pull of a planet's gravity and everything, from digesting to sleeping, had continued to be affected. A nervous stomach and sleepless nights had been the norm and yet another unintentional punishment, besides the aching of his gravity stressed joints, of his sentence to remain on Earth.  
  
The captain of the ship, a weather worn, older man in a battered cap and a thick, black coat, attended Duo on occasion, simply sitting in a chair and going over weather and fish locator maps in silence. Milliardo was always gone during these visits and Duo, barely conscious most times, could only spare a few thoughts to wonder why the captain was there.  
  
When the captain finally took off his cap, the reason why he was there ceased to be of importance. The man had a lined and leathery face, but his eyes were a dark blue and his stern expression and rough cut, chocolate colored hair reminded Duo sharply of Heero. Duo became eager to see the captain after that and he found himself watching the man covertly, indulging in a fantasy that it really was Heero Yuy sitting beside him. That fantasy, fueled by the painkillers and Duo's own desire to see Heero again, spawned a dream different than any Duo had ever experienced before.  
  
"Duo," Heero said, suddenly there and sitting beside Duo on the bed. He looked as intense as ever; expression hungry, yet loving at the same time. Duo stared in amazement as, without another word, Heero began unraveling Duo's hair from it's braid with confident hands.  
  
"Heero?" Duo murmured, feeling slight trepidation. This was wrong, wasn't it? He was supposed to wait, suppose to deny his emotions, suppose to make Heero see that Duo wasn't right for him. He would never be anything but a broken down, skinny, ex pilot who couldn't muster enough libido to get `it' up and Heero deserved better, he thought. At that moment, though, as Heero smoothed out his hair and simply sat marveling at it with his deep blue eyes, Duo felt something respond, and it was as strong and as needy as he remembered it being when he had been a young man fresh from a war.  
  
"I... Heero," Duo murmured and closed his eyes as Heero peeled back the rough blanket and wordlessly slipped in beside him. Heero was strangely naked now, though Duo hadn't seen him undress.  
  
Heero kissed Duo's neck and his tongue came out to make a hot trail down to Duo's collar bone. His hands, rough from callouses, were still capable of being gentle and eliciting moans of pleasure from Duo as they smoothed along Duo's lower body sensually. He ended by taking hold of Duo's hands and, still saying nothing, guiding those hands to his impressive erection.  
  
It felt.... Duo didn't want to analyze it too closely. A part of his mind derisively told him that he was dreaming and that sex with a man, aside from the fumbling attempts earlier in his life, was outside of his sensory experiences. Duo was still able to pretend, though, and he did, playing with Heero and imagining a soft sheathed hardness.  
  
"Please," Heero begged, speaking at last. "Let me be the first, Duo. Be with me, and only me, for the rest of our lives."  
  
Soap opera drivel, that derisive part of Duo's mind canted, but Duo told it to shut up as he accepted the dream, hook, line, and sinker. Pushing away reality, Duo pulled Heero against him and wrapped his thin legs around Heero's strong torso. He rubbed his cock against Heero's in a wanton, primal motion, as Heero's hands cupped his ass and kneaded there, both of them groaning in appreciation.  
  
Heero broke away at last and moved down Duo's body. Duo twisted fingers into Heero's wild, chocolate hair as the man's mouth closed on his weeping erection and began sucking with strong up and down motions. Duo cried out, threw back his head, and humped Heero's mouth. When the climax came, it exploded from Duo's groin so powerfully that Duo hunched over himself and Heero, grasping with bruising force at his lover's back.  
  
"Duo!" Hands shook at Duo while a familiar voice shouted into his ear.  
  
Duo started awake, shaking still from the remnants of the orgasm, to see Milliardo crouched by the bed, his face full of concern. "Wha-" Duo looked quickly about them, but he was back inside the familiar four wooden walls of their fish reeking cabin. Heero had never been there.  
  
Duo became aware that his hand was locked around his own cock under the blankets and that something sticky, cum he suspected, was drying on his skin. A wet dream. He wanted to laugh and die of embarrassment at the same time.  
  
"It's okay," Duo mumbled as he propped himself up on his pillow, making sure to keep the blanket in place. Milliardo didn't miss the covert movement of the blanket though as Duo surreptitiously removed his hand from himself.  
  
Duo expected disgust or at least a quick withdrawal of masculine understanding, but he was surprised to see a pensive look form on Milliardo's face. "It seems that you are getting better in more ways than one," he commented. "That is very good news. It means that the Oz drugs are gone from your body at last, allowing your body to recover and begin producing hormones again."  
  
"You mean I can 'get off' again, " Duo said more bluntly, but he was blushing as well. "Yeah, it's good news to me too, so can we just drop it now and talk about something else? When the Hell do we get off of this stinking boat?"  
  
"That is what I came to speak to you about," Milliardo replied, but his ice blue eyes seemed riveted on Duo's crotch. "We should be able to leave the ship some time in the next few days. The government is still searching for you, but they have all but given up in this area."  
  
"No," Duo suddenly said. When Milliardo finally raised eyes to his face, Duo continued harshly, "You don't have a chance, Zechs. I already told you. Hormones or no hormones, I'm not fifteen any more. I'm not going to lay just anyone and that includes you."  
  
Milliardo looked angry, but he didn't deny Duo's interpretation of his thoughts. "Desire is not something that can be turned on and off easily," he replied, but then he did as Duo had asked and began outlining a plan of escape to a remote bungalow owned by the captain of the ship. A few crewmen would go along, doubling as both guards and servants while they waited until Heero and the others returned from space.  
  
"The sooner we leave the better," Duo said at last, though he would regret leaving behind the familiar roll and pitch of the ship. "That captain is giving me the creeps. Why the Hell does he come in here and sit with me? Can`t you trust me to be alone?"   
  
Milliardo cleared his throat as he straightened from the bed. "He is only validating our cover story."  
  
"What?" Duo said, confused.  
  
"You're his lover, remember?," Milliardo clarified. "He has to pretend to come in here and make love to you."  
  
"You son of a bitch!" Duo exploded. "I can't believe you went through with that!"  
  
"I would never hurt you intentionally," Milliardo replied seriously, "but that was necessary." He narrowed eyes at Duo, not able to help a flash of anger as he cruelly pointed out, "If you think Heero would have treated you differently..."  
  
Duo's face tightened, knowing that Milliardo was attempting a bit of revenge for his rejection. Milliardo's words didn't have their desired effect on Duo, though. Remembering Heero from the war, and the sacrifices they had all made, Duo said, with the pain of past violence coloring his voice, "Heero would put a bullet in my head if he thought that I was about to be captured by an enemy. I would let him do it too. Don't make the mistake of thinking that peacetime has mellowed soldiers like us, Zechs."  
  
"If you want me to think that, then stop complaining about the simpler sacrifices you have to make to keep our cover!" Milliardo snapped back. "Or at least refrain from criticizing until you can present me with a better plan of action. I grow weary of suffering through your irritating protestations!"  
  
Milliardo left Duo alone to stew in his anger then, both of them knowing that Milliardo was right, but both of them also knowing the pride, and the past between them, that was keeping Duo from admitting it.


	22. Resuscitate

"Get up!"  
  
"Fuck you!"  
  
"You are not going to lay there until every muscle in your body atrophies!" Milliardo Peacecraft shouted as he pulled off Duo's blanket.  
  
Duo curled up around himself convulsively, bone thin body shivering despite the heat of the bungalow and the pair of shorts and white tank top he was wearing. After finally leaving the ship and returning to dry land, Duo had suffered such a bad bout of sickness and disorientation that it had renewed his hatred for Earth's harsh gravity.  
  
"I still don't feel good!' Duo moaned and tried to pull the blanket back over himself. Milliardo jerked it out of reach, grabbed a thin, brittle wrist, and pulled Duo off of the bed after it. Duo staggered, almost had the dry heaves at the sudden, upright position, and then fell to his knees bonelessly.  
  
"You are such a bastard!" Duo snarled, glaring at Milliardo. He felt as if the rough wood of the floor had taken off the skin from his knees.  
  
"When you've commanded men in battle, like I have, you need to be a bastard," Milliardo replied tersely. "Do you think that wears off because I spent four years behind a desk placating idiots?"  
  
"What do you expect me to do?" Duo snapped back as he tried, almost without success, to simply sit without falling over.  
  
"I expect you to start taking care of yourself!" Milliardo replied as if he were indeed commanding a lazy soldier to order. "You've been allowed to rest for nearly a week now, doing nothing more strenuous than listening to the seagulls and sitting in the sun. That can't be allowed to continue if you hope to regain your strength."  
  
"What 'strength'?" Duo wondered angrily. "I heard the doctor talking to Quatre. I'm sure you spoke with him too. Old Duo Maxwell isn't going to ever be anything, but a pitiful-"  
  
Milliardo reached down again and hooked an arm around Duo. Helping him to stand, he forced Duo into the bathroom, sat him on the toilet seat, and then turned to leave. "Wash yourself, do your business, and do something with your hair! I'm leaving orders that the men are not to help you any longer."  
  
Milliardo wasn't expecting the kind of expression that crossed Duo's face. Duo looked as if he had been given a death sentence, one that he had been waiting for. "What are you thinking?" Milliardo demanded.  
  
Duo pushed his tangled bangs out of his eyes and turned hard, purple eyes on Milliardo. "I was wondering when you were going to get back at me for rejecting you."  
  
Milliardo's lip curled. It still hurt, that word 'rejection'. It hurt even more to see Duo's lips speak it. He refused to reveal that to Duo, refused to show a weakness that would allow Duo to ignore him and indulge himself further. "You think too much of yourself," Milliardo replied in contempt and left him there.  
  
"Too much?" Duo snorted. The bungalow was small. He knew that Milliardo could hear him. "You're giving my self esteem too much credit."  
  
Duo did feel dirty and his hair was almost matted at the back from sweat. He didn't smell good either. Duo unbraided his hair and ran his fingers through it, trying to loosen some of the knots while he planned a strategy for cleaning himself up without hurting himself in the process.  
  
Hands and knees, Duo decided, since his legs wouldn't hold him and he became too dizzy when he straightened up. Pulling off his tank top and slipping off his shorts, Duo eased himself onto the hardwood floor, ignoring the sharp pangs of his still heeling ankle.  
  
The bathroom had a deep, almost oval tub with a handheld shower head that had to be taken down from a holder high on the wall. Knowing that he couldn't reach it, Duo settled for a tub bath. Turning on the water, he struggled to get his body over the high, porcelain edge. Surprising himself when he finally accomplished it, Duo settled back with his legs stretched towards the drain.  
  
Duo watched the water rise. Sighing at the soothing warmth around his aching joints and his sore ankle, he prematurely congratulated himself on having accomplished the feat of taking a bath by himself. When Duo decided that the tub was full, he tried to lean forward to turn the spigot off. Instead, he lost his balance and slid underneath the water. Duo flailed, wildly attempting to get his weakened arms and legs underneath him to push his head out of the water. It seemed like such an easy thing to do, yet Duo slid again and again, panic completely disorienting him.  
  
A strong hand grabbed Duo and pulled him up. Duo gasped for air, sobbing and spluttering at the same time. When his panic subsided at the realization that he was safe and not drowning any longer, Duo's eyes focused and he found himself looking into Milliardo's stern face. Without a hint of compassion, Milliardo said, "You almost drowned in a bathtub, pilot. Are you ready to try and regain your strength or should I let go and let you finish drowning?"  
  
Duo wiped at his wet face with a trembling hand. Unable to speak, he held out his arms to Milliardo and let the man save him.  
  
+  
  
After a few weeks of Milliardo's grueling exercises and insistence that Duo do things for himself, Duo almost wished that he had drowned. Duo wanted to succeed, wanted to regain his strength, and wanted there to be something for Heero to want when he returned. Not as important, but certainly something Duo wished for strongly, was the desire to find Santoro and the shadow figures in the government who had decided to destroy his life and commit murder. Wanting, though, and doing, were turning out to be even harder than Duo imagined.  
  
"Five more!" Milliardo demanded.  
  
"Go... to... Hell!" Duo panted, sobbing.  
  
"Five more, Captain Maxwell!"  
  
"C-Can't!"  
  
"Did you cry when Dr. G trained you?" Milliardo asked in disgust. Sitting at his ease in a chair, with legs crossed and wearing a starched uniform of white and red, he looked cool and collected. His eyes, though, were like glaciers as they rested on the sweating, panting, and sobbing figure of Duo at his feet. "Somehow, I don't think a ruthless man like that would have given you a Gundam if you had."  
  
Duo gave a wordless growl of fury and surged up off of the wooden floor in a push up. He whined. He hated that he did it, but he couldn't help it as tortured flesh screamed at him. Sweat dripping into his eyes, he blinked rapidly as every part of his body shook like a leaf in a storm. When he let his body touch the floor again, he sobbed, but didn't pause as he surged up once more; fueled by pure adrenalin. He didn't know how he made it to five, or even if he did. He stopped only when he heard Milliardo grunt, "Enough!"  
  
"Shit!" the word exploded out of Duo as he curled up in a fetal ball and just tried to breathe.  
  
"Too slow," Milliardo said critically as he examined his stop watch. "You did better last time."  
  
"L-Last time I-I wasn't half d-dead!" Duo panted and then whimpered as his entire midriff knotted in a spasm.   
  
"Stop wasting breath," Milliardo growled. "You must know by now that your complaining doesn't affect me. I am not going to make it easier for you."  
  
Duo recalled Heero's slow and patient training sessions. The man had let Duo go at his own pace and had always stopped before pain had become too unbearable. For someone who had months and months for rehabilitation, Heero's method would have worked. Milliardo, as cruel as he seemed, was doing what was best for Duo in the time that they had before Heero and the others, hopefully, returned to Earth. Duo knew that, but it didn't make it any easier for him. He couldn't help hating Milliardo for forcing him to do the exercises and endure the pain. He couldn't stop himself from shouting, cursing, and balking at every step. It was human nature to avoid stress and pain, not to seek it out. Duo wasn't any different, even when avoiding them could possibly cost him his life.  
  
"Rest for exactly fifteen minutes and then join me outside," Milliardo ordered. "I expect you to do ten laps around the property and I expect you to walk much more quickly than you did last time. It is an exercise, not a chance to gaze at scenery." Milliardo stood up and walked away, tinkering with his stop watch as if he thought that there might be something wrong with it.  
  
Duo stared daggers after Milliardo as the man left the room, long legs moving in an unconscious, military style and white hair swaying along his back. "Die," Duo breathed, and, at that moment, he meant it.  
  
The bungalow was run down, the furnishings and the comforts sparse. Their guards kept themselves on the perimeter of their lives and Duo and Milliardo were left in each other's company far too long. From the time he woke in the morning, until the time he collapsed into bed at night, Duo was confronted by a calm, collected, and impeccable Milliardo. The man watched, in seeming dispassion, as Duo sweated and cried. Like a white haired devil, Duo thought one day, and began to think that he had died and was in some sort of Hell reserved for Gundam pilots. Just like some sadistic demon, Milliardo never let up and never stopped ordering Duo to new efforts. He timed every one of Duo's exercises, measured the caloric and vitamin content of every mouthful of food, and criticized Duo's every effort.  
  
The exercises should have become easier in time, but Milliardo stepped them up a notch each day and pushed Duo to the limit of what his sickly flesh could endure without compassion and without an ounce of the love that he professed to feel for Duo. He was the worst kind of boot camp sergeant and, as Duo began to feel as if his body were being worn away and destroyed by Milliardo's demands, he began to think that the man, far from trying to bring him back to health, was actually trying to kill him.  
  
It was an insane thought. There was nothing in the exercises that was out of the ordinary if a person were completely healthy, yet the idea began to gnaw at Duo and over take any common sense he might have had. He was exhausted. His mind wasn't processing things as it should. Self preservation instincts began to kick in, especially when Milliardo lost patience and made the mistake of reaching out to Duo and taking hold of him to force him back to his feet.  
  
Something snapped. Duo wasn't sure what happened next, except that one moment, he had been on his knees and feeling as if he had breathed his last in the front yard of the bungalow, and in the next, he was thrusting away and then coming back at Milliardo in a perfect karate kick to Milliardo's head.  
  
Duo had a glimpse of flying white hair and surprised, ice blue, eyes, before Milliardo ducked the kick and then struck back with a martial arts move of his own. Duo blocked it, whirled, and then kicked again, his body responding in a way that it hadn't been able to in far too long. Duo was screaming; a wordless expression of utter frustration as he rained blow after blow on Milliardo. The man blocked repeatedly, falling back and almost stumbling in his haste to avoid Duo's chops and kicks.  
  
Given room, Duo might have killed the man, but Milliardo was a soldier too. He didn't allow Duo the space to launch a killing move. Instead, he suddenly threw himself forward and tackled Duo to the ground. Pinning him there beneath his greater weight, Milliardo stared down into Duo's face angrily.  
  
Duo glared back at Milliardo, chest heaving, blood boiling, and mind lost in a fog of fury and pain. "Why- Why don't you just kill me quickly instead of-of by slow torture?" Duo panted.  
  
Milliardo's expression suddenly changed from anger to stunned concern. "You really think that, don't you, that I'm attempting to kill you?"  
  
Duo didn't reply, but his angry face said volumes.   
  
Milliardo's hair hung about them both and they were panting, bodies heaving against one another as they tensely waited to see who would make the next move. It was an impasse. At first, Milliardo tried to simply hold onto Duo until he regained some sense. When it was apparent that Duo was only waiting for Milliardo to relax his hold to attack again, Milliardo tried a different tack.  
  
"I'm helping you," Milliardo said. "I don't know why you don't understand that. Sympathy can be a two edged sword. I think that your comrades were indulging you, because they felt sorry for you; because they didn't realize, as I do, that you are capable of far more than most healthy men."  
  
"I spent a lot of time screaming and puking when I tried to get off of your stinking Oz drugs!" Duo spat back, voice stronger now that he had caught his breath. "After I was hooked up to a respirator and IVs, I think a full body work out stopped being an option!"  
  
"I know that they had attempted to make you stronger before you stopped taking the medication, but it didn't seem as if they had much success," Milliardo replied, but then conceded, "Not that it would have mattered much without the treatment. The drugs were made to be fail safe. They would have killed you without the treatment."  
  
"I was getting better," Duo remembered in confusion. "Before Quatre's estate was attacked, before I took the 'soldier's helper', I thought... I felt like I was getting better."  
  
"The cessation of some of the drugs might have led you to believe so," Milliardo explained.  
  
"So, you saved my life by getting the treatment for me," Duo whispered, tense muscles suddenly going lax.  
  
Milliardo gave him an edged smile, "I've saved your life several times, as I recall."  
  
Duo went distant, considering that. He felt a flush of shame. "Sorry. I guess... They've knocked me down to ground level for four years, Zechs. They took control of my life away from me and made me suffer, day after day, even questioning my sanity. The drugs... I was chained to them and my life revolved around them. Do you know how hard it is to NOT grow up? To stay small? Too be thin? I stayed a teenager while my old buddies from the war grew tall, strong, and sprouted beards. Even little Quatre... even he managed to grow up. I want to be like that. I want to be strong! I want to do every hellish exercise you set up as easy as I used to do them for Dr. G. You've got nothing on that sadistic bastard, Zechs! Your routines should be walks in the park to me..." Duo sighed and closed his eyes tight, hating self knowledge. "I'm afraid, pure and simple. I don't want to fail. I don't want to know what my limit is, how much I will never be able to do again. I want to think that you're trying to kill me, that you're setting up impossible tasks, just so I don't have to realize that... that it's me who is failing."  
  
"Duo, I-" Milliardo began, moved by Duo's confession.  
  
Duo went gruff, turning his chin away and refusing to look at Milliardo, maybe afraid of seeing disgust. "I'm just a freakin' whus, I guess. A chicken shit. I'm even talking like some damned girl, confessing my 'feelings'."  
  
Milliardo caught Duo's chin in one hand and turned his face towards him. Duo opened his eyes, frowning, but Milliardo said intently, "You just made me back up, Captain Duo Maxwell. I wasn't pulling my attacks. You blocked them, you countered them, and you made me think that my life was in danger."  
  
Duo stared and then he said softly. "It was."  
  
A hand grabbed hold Of Milliardo's shoulder. The fingers were strong, strong enough to bend steel, and they dug harshly into flesh as the owner of that hand flung Milliardo off of Duo. Milliardo hit the ground, rolled, and tried to regain his feet as he faced the intruder.  
  
Heero stood, breathing hard with emotion, facing Milliardo with one fist clenched and the other griping a gun. He was glaring, nostrils flaring, mouth set in a hard line, and eyes dark wells of blue that had a look in them; a look that was usually the last thing men saw before Heero killed them.   
  
"Heero," Duo whispered, stunned, not sure if he was hallucinating or not.  
  
"Duo," Heero replied, not taking his eyes off of Milliardo. "Are you all right?"  
  
"Yeah, no, I mean..." Duo trailed off, confused. He stood shakily, arms clutching himself around the waist in pain as his body let him know that Milliardo's tackle hadn't been without consequences. "Shit!" he groaned, feeling as if his ribs had been bruised bone deep.  
  
Heero lifted his gun and aimed it at Milliardo. Milliardo gained his feet, uniform coat full of dirt and debris from the ground, his white- blonde hair a tangle over his face. "You are assuming the worst," he said carefully and then to Duo. "Explain to Heero the situation."  
  
"Heero," Duo said, not sure he wanted to let Milliardo off the hook yet, "What are you doing here? How did you find us?"  
  
"I tracked a shipment of K rations to a ship registered off the coast," Heero explained, "I infiltrated the ship and discovered messages between the captain and Milliardo. It was simple to follow crew movements until some of them came to this place to rotate guard duties and deliver the rations."  
  
Duo nodded and made a face of disgust. "Zechs thinks k rations are nutritionally complete. I think something only loosely resembling food shouldn't be eaten."  
  
Heero's gun twitched. He frowned. "I need a status of the situation," he finally said and Duo sensed a deeper meaning. He realized that his flippant joke had changed Heero's assumption about the situation, that now he was assuming something else.  
  
"Heero..." Duo began to explain, but then stopped. He felt angry suddenly, angry that Heero wasn't looking at him, angry that the moment he had longed for, had thought, in his worst moments of pain and exhaustion, would be warm and wonderful, was instead ruined by Heero's assumption that he had been rolling with Milliardo on the ground for all the wrong reasons.  
  
Milliardo spoke quickly as he realized what was going through the ex-pilot of Wing's mind as well. "I ordered the k- rations in case we were forced to hide in more remote areas. I find it amazing that you could scour an entire planet and pick out such a small detail. It seems I am continually underestimating Gundam pilots." He paused to ascertain Heero's reaction. Heero only narrowed his eyes. Milliardo went on nervously, eying the barrel of Heero's gun. "I thought it was wise to rehabilitate Duo while we waited here for you to return. I set up a rigorous training schedule, knowing the time constraints, but Duo was not only refusing to cooperate whole heartedly, he just now attacked me in anger and-"  
  
"And?" Heero echoed with a raised black eyebrow.  
  
"I think his exhaustion was clouding his judgment," Milliardo finished, not wanting to elaborate further than that.  
  
"He almost died before we met you!" Heero grated. "Not once, but several times! Where is his doctor? Why did he allow you to-"  
  
"He's dead!" Duo cut in. They both looked at him, Heero for the first time. Duo saw Heero's face register shock at all the dirt, at the way Duo's bangs were plastered with sweat to his forehead, and at his drawn, exhausted expression. "He died saving me. He died helping me and Zechs escape." Duo paused. He swallowed in a dry throat as Heero's eyes searched him for... Duo knew what he was looking for. "Guess you believed some of the stories about me," Duo finished bitterly.  
  
Heero went pale. "No! That's not true!" he protested strongly. He glared at Milliardo and then looked back at Duo with an intenseness that made Duo almost afraid. "Every minute, every second that I was away, " Heero said, "was time I wished that I could have spent with you. I came here because my mission was accomplished. Quatre's people are safe. I wanted to be by your side again. I didn't want any more wasted moments slipping away from either of us."  
  
"So," Milliardo snapped angrily, wanting to break the moment between Heero and Duo and wanting to stop the inevitable from happening; the moment when Duo left him again and rejoined Heero. "How many red flags did you send up before you reached this place? How many government officials or local citizens saw you and wondered where the intense young stranger was going? You may have compromised our security!"  
  
Heero ignored him, all of his attention on Duo. "Tell me," he said at last. "Tell me that you want me here."  
  
Duo knew that his heart was in his eyes, but he was still angry and ready to be contrary. He growled as he began to turn away, "I can't think. I need a bath and something besides k-rations. I'll let you know after that."  
  
It was revenge of sorts, but the stricken look on Heero's face negated any pleasure in it that Duo might have felt. Heero was afraid, Duo realized in amazement. His reaction to Milliardo was suddenly understandable. Heero wasn't simply jealous, or doubting Duo's fidelity, he was, instead, doubting himself and doubting that Duo wanted him over the Prince of Sanq.  
  
Duo stopped and began to turn back. It was all wrong, he realized. It shouldn't be like that between them. He had to mend it, he felt, turn back the clock and try and recapture the dream of how he envisioned they would meet again.  
  
Duo suddenly felt dizzy. He stumbled and felt Heero catch his elbow to steady him. It happened all at once, a slick wet rush from his nose that could only be blood. Duo put up a hand and confirmed it. His fingers were coated in crimson. He stared at it in morbid fascination and then the world went dark as fell unconscious into Heero's arms.


	23. Heaven

"Get a damned doctor!"  
  
Heero's voice shouting near his ear was the first thing Duo was aware of. He felt softness hit his back. His bed? Hands pulled at his clothes. He heard cloth rip before he was weakly grabbing hands and holding them still. Blinking to clear his eyes, Duo finally focused on Heero leaning over him. There was stark fear on the man's face.  
  
"S'okay," Duo croaked. Heero froze, staring. "It's Okay," Duo repeated more clearly.  
  
"You had a hemorrhage of some sort," Heero argued. "I'm sending Zechs for a doctor."  
  
Duo squeezed Heero's hands. "No! Don't do that. I don't need one."  
  
In space, nose bleeds were common. Duo knew the feel of them, blood vessels stressed and breaking when environmental controls faltered or false gravity suddenly increased. Duo knew that he had exercised too much, pushed himself past a limit where his labored breathing had raked his sinuses one too many times. Coupled with a fainting fit, probably brought on by the same stress and his exhausted condition, and it was clear to Duo that panic and a doctor weren't necessary.  
  
Without looking around, Heero snarled, to Milliardo probably, "Get out, now!"  
  
Duo heard a door close and then Heero was settling on the bed beside him, still extremely worried. He reached out a hand and wiped Duo's sweaty bangs out of his eyes. Duo could see that Heero's eyes were wet. His voice trembled along with his hand as he said softly, "You looked like death.... still do."  
  
Duo gave him a cocky, sickly grin, "Hey! That's who I am, right? Shinigami. I'm okay, Heero! Stop looking like that."  
  
Heero wiped at his eyes and then said uncertainly, "This wasn't the way I thought it would happen... seeing you again."  
  
Duo laughed. It came out hoarse and gasping. "Neither did I." Then more seriously, "I wonder why? We're the kind of people this always happens to. We just have violent lives and we should expect everything to get fucked up and turn out violent."  
  
Heero frowned. "I don't want to expect that. I don't want to be that cynical."  
  
Duo rubbed at his aching head. "Water," he pleaded.  
  
Heero fetched him a cool glass of it and propped Duo up against his chest to drink it. Duo wanted to enjoy that contact, the feel of Heero's strong arms around him, but he remembered that he was angry with the man.  
  
"I want to get some things straight with you," Duo said and he felt the muscles of Heero's chest tremble in trepidation. "Contrary to everything you might have heard, Duo Maxwell does not roll around in the dirt with people and have sex with them like a slut."  
  
"Duo, I-" Heero began, but Duo cut him off.  
  
"You did think that! Don't give me shit otherwise!" Duo snapped.   
  
"Forgive me."  
  
"As long as you don't think it again," Duo snapped back. "I especially don't want you to think that there's something between me and Zechs... or anyone else. I thought I was pretty clear that I 'couldn't' have an interest." Duo was scalded by a blush of sick embarrassment, but he was thinking also that, If he ever did develop an interest in sex, he wanted Heero to be a part of it. He couldn't bring himself to say it, though. Heero didn't deserve that kind of revelation just then.  
  
Heero shifted and Duo found himself back against the bed with Heero leaning over him very closely. The man searched his face, trying to determine Duo's mood. "I think that I still have things to learn about relationships," he admitted. He faltered and then said, "David told me that trust was very important."  
  
"Absolutely necessary," Duo agreed.  
  
It was like falling into twin magnets of blue, staring into Heero's eyes. Duo felt something reach him all the way down to his soul. When Heero's lips softly touched his own, he didn't protest, only closed his eyes and savored the taste of Heero Yuy. He suddenly didn't care that he wasn't good enough for Heero, that he was sickly stick figure without a libido, and that he was angry at Heero. He wanted the kiss to last forever.  
  
It was Heero who broke it. He backed away, saying with a breathless voice, "You need to eat... bathe. I'll help you... if you want me too." He was asking for forgiveness for doubting Duo, for thinking the worst of him.  
  
Duo sighed, angry with himself when he realized that he couldn't look at Heero's anxious face without giving the man everything he wanted. If he hadn't been on the edge of passing out again, Duo thought, he might have gone on kissing him. "K, Heero. That sounds good; a bath and some food. I'll feel better afterwards and you can bring me up to speed on the situation with Quatre and the others."   
  
Heero nodded and began to go into the bathroom to start a bath. Duo called after him and he paused in the doorway, looking back curiously,   
  
"Heero...." Duo swallowed hard and said in a trembling voice. "It's good to see you again."  
  
Heero smiled warmly in reply and went to run the bath. When Heero returned, Duo was prepared to be in control of himself again. He said irritably, when Heero tried to help him up, "I'm not a freakin' invalid Heero! I can take my own bath." He loved seeing that smile on Heero's face, the one that told Duo that Heero was proud of him for trying to be strong.  
  
Looking back on all the complaining and crying he had done over the last few weeks, Duo wished that he could have been as proud of himself. With Milliardo, it had been easy to indulge in feeling sorry for himself. He almost disliked the man, though he wasn't certain why. Milliardo had saved his life, had shown himself loyal, honorable, and willing to go the distance despite Duo's curses and attacks, yet Duo still couldn't find it in himself to give the man anything but grudging gratitude. Perhaps it was the man's cultured bearing, something that he retained even in the face of adversity. It made it hard to get close to Milliardo. Everything about the man seemed hidden beneath a cool and collected exterior.  
  
With Heero it was different, and Duo's attitude had changed as soon as he had seen the man. Duo cared about what Heero thought of him. That Heero should think that he was weak, or unable to endure some hardship, was unacceptable. Duo was determined to show Heero his best, no matter what it cost him.  
  
"You fainted," Hero reminded him skeptically. "A hot bath will make you even more light headed."  
  
"I'll leave the door open, just in case, but I feel all right now, Heero, honest," Duo assured him as he swung legs over the side of the bed. His clothes, ripped at several points, caught his attention. "What were you trying to do, Heero?" he wondered, puzzled.  
  
"I was looking for wounds," Heero replied with a hard look on his face that told Duo he was thinking of the war and the many wounds he had been forced to treat then. "I wasn't certain if you had sustained any fighting Milliardo or if they had been the cause of your fainting spell."  
  
"Do you really think that Zechs would hurt me that badly?" Duo wondered.  
  
Heero's lips pressed into a thin line. His expression grew darker. "I don't trust that man. He proved himself by saving your life, and I didn't have any choice but to leave you in his care, but I never liked having to make that decision."  
  
"I don't trust him either and I don't know why," Duo replied, perplexed. Duo stood up tentatively. He did still feel somewhat dizzy, but not alarmingly so. "I mean," Duo continued as he made his way carefully to the bathroom. "He said that he did all of this because he loved me, but he hasn't made a single pass at me or done anything but criticize you once or twice. Not that I'm any kind of prize," Duo added self deprecatingly, "but you'd think he'd try harder to steal me away from you."  
  
Heero's hand closed on Duo's elbow. Duo looked at him, startled. "Don't say that ever again," Heero told him sternly, blue eyes glowing with a strong passion.  
  
Duo frowned, confused. "What? About Zechs?"  
  
Heero growled impatiently. "About not being any kind of 'prize'."  
  
Duo smiled and shrugged as he pulled away and continued towards the bathroom. "You show me how that's not true and I will stop."  
  
Duo was surprised when Heero grabbed him and spun him completely around to face him. Before he could react, Heero ripped off Duo's tank top. As Duo cursed and tried to jerk away, Heero snapped.   
  
"Look at yourself!"  
  
"If you don't fucking let go of me-" Duo began with a furious snarl.  
  
"Look at yourself!" Heero demanded again. "Tell me what you see! You brag that you never lie, but I think you're telling lies to yourself!"  
  
Duo freed himself. He would have liked to think that it was by his own strength, but he knew better. Heero had released him willingly. Duo went into the bathroom and slammed the door shut. Locking it, he wondered what Heero was thinking, treating him like that. No one, not even someone he loved, was going to push him around!  
  
Throwing off the remnants of his ripped shirt, Duo slipped out of his shorts as well. He flipped on the shower, adrenalin pumping through him and taking away the last of his dizziness. He was panting, growling under his breath, and truly angry at Heero for- for... for what? Duo wondered and froze in the act of ducking under the hot spray of water.  
  
There was a plain mirror on the wall above the sink. Bracing himself on the shower stall wall, Duo climbed onto the edge of the tub and then leaned until he could see his upper body in the mirror. He stood there poised and tried very hard not to let his perception of what he saw in the mirror lie to him.  
  
He was thin, so very thin, Duo thought critically, but then blinked as he realized that his muscles had hardened and wrapped around that thin frame tightly. He was hard and wiry, skin bronzed from being outside in the strong sun. It was a shock when he thought about that. When had the sun ceased to be a torment for his eyes and for his skin? When had gravity become less of a burden on his joints? Even now, he could barely feel the stress of it as he continued to balance precariously. A handful of weeks out of fours years had lessened Duo's pain, his suffering, and his weakness in the grip of Earth's influence. Heero and Wu Fei had begun the work, but Milliardo's brutal 'boot camp' had finished the job.  
  
Duo let himself down from the tub and ran his hands over his defined abs and his strongly muscled pecs. He could have continued to be critical. He could have lamented that he was still small and childish looking and therefore ugly or undesirable, but, instead, he firmed against such self indulgence. What would it get him, he thought, to keep thinking like that? If Heero couldn't love his body, then nothing was going to change that, least of all wallowing in hatred for what his enemies had left of him.  
  
"Idiot!" Duo whispered. "Didn't L2 teach you to make due with whatever you had?" He had to make due and accept things that weren't going to change, he thought, and stand up for himself, because it wasn't going to get any better. Just as he had pushed Heero off, and defended himself when the man had ripped his tank top, so too, he had to defend himself and not accept people's disgust for how he looked.   
  
"If Heero and the rest don't like what I have, they can all go to Hell!" Duo muttered as he ducked under the hot water and began to wash. No more self pity, Duo promised himself. Shinigami was back and he was back to stay.  
  
Leaving the bathroom proved to be harder than Duo imagined. He rebraided his hair, brushed his teeth, stared at his thin face in the mirror, and hardened his resolve with each passing moment. Slipping on a robe, he took a deep breath and went out to face Heero.  
  
There was a tray of food on the table; cheese and fruit, thin slices of beef, a broth soup, and a protein drink. Heero had chosen a lush red fruit from the tray. He bit into it and the juice dribbled down his chin. Wiping at it with one hand, he then sucked on a finger dripping with juice.   
  
"You can do that all day long," Duo sighed and then realized that he had said it out loud when Heero turned to him in surprise.  
  
"I would do anything for you, Duo," Heero replied and Duo could tell that he wasn't joking.  
  
"Except put up with my bitching and complaining, right?" Duo asked.  
  
Heero looked guarded as he put down the fruit, but he nodded. "I don't want to make you angry, but you're hurting yourself by thinking that way."  
  
"I know," Duo replied as he sat on the edge of the bed. "I'm not angry any more."  
  
Heero moved to stand beside him. When Duo patted the bed, Heero sat stiffly. Duo sighed, "I'm not going to hurt you Heero, relax."  
  
"You were very angry," Heero pointed out, "I know that I didn't say anything wrong, but perhaps my inexperience caused me to say things badly."  
  
Duo chuckled bitterly, "I don't think there's a good way to tell someone that they're being a whining moron. Let's just forget that any of that ever happened and start again, okay?"  
  
Heero was staring at him, looking him slowly up and down. Duo self consciously pulled the robe tightly closed . "What's wrong?" Duo asked nervously.  
  
"Nothing," Heero replied and then looked up to meet his eyes. They had an intensity that made Duo shiver. "It's just that you look almost like the Duo Maxwell I met at the start of Operation Meteor. I think you're beginning to act like him again, as well."

"Think so?" Duo asked skeptically and then caught himself before bitterness blossomed. He throttled it down and grinned. "I guess I am getting back into shape, courtesy of bastard Milliardo Peacecraft's exercise retreat."  
  
Heero grudgingly replied. "He did help you. He was probably harder on you, and attained far more results, than I would have in his place."  
  
"Why is that?" Duo wondered  
  
Heero shrugged slightly and told the truth. "I love you too much to watch you suffer."  
  
That statement made Duo think. "We should watch him," he said.  
  
Heero tentatively reached out and very carefully encircled Duo's waist with his arm. When Duo didn't protest, he slowly brought Duo up against his side. It was very odd, Duo thought, it was as if they were made to fit together perfectly. He was comfortable against Heero's long waist and rounded shoulder. "I've never stopped watching him," Heero admitted.  
  
Duo looked up into Heero's face. Heero looked back. They studied each other silently, each of them trying to figure out how they felt. Duo couldn't even describe to himself why it was both mentally awkward and desirable at the same time to be so close to Heero. He supposed it was because they both had so much baggage, so many unresolved problems, present and future. They both were where they had always longed to be, he supposed, but it didn't make it any easier knowing that. There was still a large question hovering in the air and Duo couldn't help but ask it.  
  
"What now?"  
  
Heero went pensive, his grip tightening a bit. "I want to continue our relationship."  
  
Duo gave him a small punch on the arm. Heero flinched as Duo retorted, "I know that! I meant everything else."  
  
Heero frowned. "Our next move must be executed flawlessly. Once we begin to move again, then discovery becomes a greater possibility. They haven't ceased searching for you and your leg locator is still far too active at too great a distance."  
  
Duo blinked. "You know that I didn't get it removed?"  
  
Heero fished a chain out from under his shirt. He showed Duo a round disk, with an electronic compass and range finder, hanging from it. "I knew it was a possibility that removing the locator would fail, so I took the time to register the signal before leaving you with Milliardo. I partly tracked your position once I knew where to narrow my search."  
  
"I suddenly feel like a rabbit out in the open with the foxes close by," Duo replied anxiously. "I guess I was pretty lucky that no one else found me."  
  
"Very lucky," Heero replied.  
  
"You must have some plan," Duo prompted then. "You didn't come all this way to sit with me."  
  
Heero's eyes warmed. "That would have been enough reason."  
  
"But not with things as they are and I know Heero Yuy better than that," Duo retorted. "Now, are you going to tell me what's going on with the other guys and where you think we should go next?"  
  
Heero composed himself, mind coming to order and his next words as precise as a mission report. "We reached Ariella Satellite and found it partially dismantled and open to space. We made repairs, restoring life support and gravity, and settled Quatre's people there.   
  
He and Trowa remained to organize teams for further repairs and intended to make covert runs for supplies. Quatre was also drawing up plans to petition the government and was making coded contacts to representatives on your behalf when I left. Wu Fei is on Earth. We will be joining him soon."  
  
"Where?" Duo wondered.  
  
"Classified," Heero replied. "It is a secured site and only I will have the area's location until we reach it."  
  
"Your trust is heartwarming, as always," Duo said sarcastically, stiffening a little in Heero's grip. Heero's thumb rubbed along his arm gently, an apology that wasn't an apology. Heero knew how to run a covert operation. "Sorry," Duo growled and then, "When do we leave?"  
  
"I came to ascertain your ability to endure high G maneuvers in case of trouble," Heero told him. Again he studied Duo. "And to see if you were capable of carrying out an infiltration operation. That operation must be carried out before we meet with Wu Fei."  
  
Duo frowned. "What? What's that have to do-"  
  
"There is information in a government computer system that might help your case against the corrupt individuals who hurt you," Heero explained. "Computer hacking and stealth infiltration are your specialties. If you are able, I think you would be the best candidate for the mission."  
  
"Where would I have to get this information from?" Duo asked eagerly. He felt a thrill of adrenalin, eyes sparkling as he thought of having the chance to face that kind of danger, that kind of thrill again. He knew that he should have felt guilty and ashamed. Usually, his job had been to infiltrate and plant bombs, destroying people and buildings for the cause of the colonists, but Duo couldn't help the excitement, the eager anticipation he felt at the thought of doing it one more time. At least this time, he soothed his conscience, he could make certain that no one died for what he obtained.  
  
"I have the plans and location on computer. You'll be briefed on the way," Heero explained. His smile held some of the same excitement that Duo was feeling. "First, though, I have to check on your condition. When you feel able, I'll run you through some exercise routines."  
  
Duo turned on the bed to face Heero. "Okay, that's the mission and the objective," he said and grabbed hold of Heero's hands hard in his. He glared at Heero and Heero looked confused until Duo said sternly, "Now, Heero Yuy, I think we need to get some things straight."  
  
"I'm listening," Heero replied seriously.  
  
"You're not my commanding officer," Duo told him. "I've been out of commission for a long time and it was right for you to take command during that time. Now, I'm back and, though I still have some work to do getting up to full strength, I can damn well haul my own butt around and make my own decisions, k?"  
  
"Understood," Heero replied calmly.  
  
"Any time I start whining and feeling sorry for myself, you have permission to tell me what a complete moron/ piece of shit I am," Duo continued.  
  
"Understood," Heero repeated with a grim smile.  
  
"If you try to push or pull me around, and rip my damned clothes, like you did before, and I'll knock you on your ass!"  
  
"Understood," Heero repeated yet again, his dark blue eyes almost glowing under his dark bangs.  
  
Duo licked nervous lips. "I may be a virgin," he finished with blush, "but that doesn't mean that I don't know how to 'do it', or that I don't want to do it, or that you need to be the guy with the pants in this little relationship." Heero was looking confused again, so Duo decided to give him an example. He grabbed Heero's chin hard and pulled the man's lips against his.   
  
Duo wasn't prepared for Heero's response. He was suddenly on his back with Heero on top. The man was sliding hot hands under his robe, pushing an obvious erection against Duo's groin. Hungry lips devoured Duo's and then sucked and lapped at his neck. Duo swallowed hard as fingers squeezed and played with his nipples. He choked, hoarse and almost frightened, as Heero displayed an intense need, a bridled passion that had been wanting for too long.   
  
The man was going to have him then and there, thinking somehow that Duo's small kiss had been permission given.  
  
"I-I didn't think that mission planning was-was such a turn on for you," Duo managed to say. His voice turned into a squeak when Heero's fingers began sliding down towards his navel and what lay below that.  
  
"H-Heero," Duo protested at last, all bravado suddenly gone.   
  
Heero was losing himself in a young man's libido, a sexual need that was strong, stronger than the slight excitement and warmth that Duo was feeling in response. Heero wasn't holding back. Duo was a man after all, not a blushing virgin girl. They were both strong and trained soldiers. They both should have the same urge to have pleasure, a young man's pleasure that was all about release and nothing about regret.  
  
"Heero!" Duo said more strongly and his hands gripped Heero's arms hard, knowing that he couldn't force Heero off, but hoping simply to get the man's attention before it was too late, before he began to feel raped instead of loved.  
  
Heero stopped so suddenly that Duo caught his breath. The man's passion filled expression, his half closed eyes, and his swollen lips, were poised above Duo as Heero's mind tried to overcome libido. Heero's hips flexed and Duo felt his hard erection push against him, as if the man was making a silent plea.  
  
"I-I'm not ready yet," Duo admitted and felt small enough to crawl through a crack in the floor. "I didn't mean.... I wasn't... It was just a kiss. This... I wish I was ready, but... I'm not." He tried to make excuses, "Zechs is right out there somewhere, listening maybe. We're on the verge of starting a mission, of running into danger. I haven't..." All of it was the truth, but not the truth of how he felt and why. "I want a better place to do this," he finished lamely.  
  
Heero fell sideways onto the bed and let out a very long breath. Duo was surprised when Heero gathered him into his arms and held him gently, nuzzling Duo's neck and hair. He didn't say the obvious, that Duo, physically, was still a budding fifteen year old and not ready for the intense passion of Heero who was physically far older and more experienced. Instead, he said simply, "You want the romance. David was the same way."  
  
It hurt to be compared to an ex lover, but Duo couldn't hate a dead man for having given Heero that insight. Duo replied in acute embarrassment. "I can't be like you. A kiss is just a kiss, Heero, until I say it's otherwise okay? If I decide to go further... yeah, I need it slow and I need to be ready, not taken like an Oz fortress at dusk in a full frontal assault."  
  
Heero kissed the nape of his neck. "I want you," he replied, "I want you so badly it hurts. I thought, when you kissed me, that you had returned to normal, that you were needing me as much as I needed you. I told you before that I would wait, that we should wait, until it was the right time, the right mood, the right place. I still believe that, but, it was hard to remember it when your lips touched mine."  
  
Duo remembered his own sexual abandon where Zechs was concerned that night so long ago at Quatre's party. He tried to remember what it had felt like, that burning need that he knew needed an outlet, any outlet, even with a man he hadn't particularly liked. Duo had a feeling that, if he had gone through with it, he might have felt disgusted with himself, but not sorry that he had relieved the need. He remembered it being that strong, that all encompassing. Knowing that Heero was feeling that molten fire below the belt, that need to get off no matter what, Duo wondered if Heero really understood Duo's lack of response.  
  
"Thanks, Heero, for stopping," Duo said.  
  
"I love you. I don't want to hurt you or make you have sex when... when you don't feel capable," Heero replied. He took a breath and then said, "If you want to try again, slower this time, I could check the perimeter to make certain that we're safe, lock the door, make it a place where you feel comfortable enough to-"  
  
Needing romance had seemed a much better way to put it, Duo thought sourly. Impotence was a harder to deal with, yet closer to the truth. "We don't have time for foreplay or for getting me 'in the mood' even if I can be gotten 'in the mood', " Duo grumbled as he sat up. He turned to Heero and looked down at him. Why couldn't that handsome, lust starved face, do more for him than make him tingle and feel warm? Where was the fire that he should have felt, that would have let him crawl under Heero's clothes and beg the man to 'do' him? Mentally, Duo wanted that and he almost considered saying to Hell with what his body wanted, or didn't want, and doing it anyway. He could fake an orgasm, he was sure, if Heero didn't look too close.  
  
As if reading his thoughts, Heero said softly. "Don't."  
  
Duo blinked, ashamed. When Heero drew him down and positioned him so that he was lying on top of the man's body, Duo couldn't find the will to refuse. Heero smoothed hands along his sides, his back, and simply kissed him.   
  
"It isn't all about sex, Duo," Heero told him.  
  
"I had a dream about you," Duo murmured. "I was hot for you in the dream. I came. Why can't I do that when you're really here?"  
  
Heero's hands paused and then continued their slow motions. "A dream is different from reality," he said. "We need to go slow because you feel anxious. We need to have the right place and the right time, so that you can relax and not have stress interfere."  
  
"Let me know when all of that happens," Duo replied bleakly.   
  
Heero smiled against his face and then kissed him again as he said, "Don't worry. I will."


	24. Operations

"This is unacceptable!" Milliardo fumed as he followed Duo and Heero from the bungalow and watched them taking up positions facing each other in the yard. "You're telling me that you are leaving, that I'm not to know where you are going, and that I'm to stand aside while you endanger Duo's health! You want me to do all of that without question. I refuse! I want answers, Yuy!"  
  
Duo, having spent the day resting, felt ready for what ever Heero cared to throw at him. He gave Milliardo a serious look. "Zechs," he replied. "Thanks for everything that you did for me, but I gotta go with Heero. I still have to try and shake things up with the government. My life is shit until I get recognition that I'm not an anti unification terrorist and prove that people have been plotting against me. I don't want to spend my life hiding in a fish hut."  
  
"You are not completely well, Duo," Milliardo complained. "It was my plan to take you, once the government had stepped down its search for you, to one of my remote estates. I had planned to have the other pilots join us there so that we could coordinate our efforts to reveal the corrupt individuals in the government."  
  
Heero narrowed eyes at Milliardo. "You are too high profile," he reasoned. "Your properties will be watched. As for Duo's health, I will make certain that he receives proper care." He faced Duo again and began to warm up with several slow, martial arts moves. "It has all been carefully planned. I didn't allow any room for mistakes."  
  
Heero looked dark and dangerous, dressed only in a blue t shirt and a pair of loose, black jeans, but Milliardo was in his red uniform, looking like ice as usual, his long, white hair fluttering in a breeze. Compared to Milliardo, Heero looked like a boy, shorter, slighter, and wilder. Next to them both, Duo felt like a child.  
  
"Let's get on with it!" Duo snapped as he flexed his knees and felt only a slight pain from Earth's gravity. No more self pity, he reminded himself, show Heero that you're a man.  
  
Heero nodded, once, and began to approach cautiously.  
  
Duo knew that his only chance to beat Heero was a full frontal assault. He couldn't win the test of strength or endurance. He had to conquer by speed and cunning. Without warning, he sprang at Heero, grinning at Heero's sharp surprise and his flinch backwards. That allowed Duo all the opportunity he needed. He twisted in mid air and brought his foot around. It connected with Heero's head. Landing neatly, he turned to survey the damage.  
  
Heero had staggered, but he wasn't a normal man. Genetically enhanced and possessed of extraordinary strength, he straightened from a blow that would have knocked anyone else out cold and counter attacked.  
  
Duo wasn't there to meet Heero's blow. The chop of the man's hand ruffled the air by Duo's neck as he ducked and kicked upward, catching Heero's chin with his heel. Heero staggered back again and abruptly sat down, both of his hands on his chin as if he was afraid that Duo had broken his jaw.  
  
Duo didn't fall for it. He held back, wary, and was rewarded as Heero dropped his hands and smiled at him, eyes glinting appreciatively. "I'm not stupid, Heero, " Duo chuckled. "I know a trick when I see one." He turned to see how Milliardo was reacting, but the man was gone.  
  
"I feel guilty," Duo admitted as Heero motioned that he was through and stood up. "He risked a lot to save me and all I can do in return is say, 'See ya' later and thanks!' Maybe we should take him with us?"  
  
Heero's _expression went grim. "I thought that you didn't fall for tricks."  
  
Duo frowned. "I keep having this feeling about him, but it gets all mixed up with the past. I don't like him, but I wonder if that's just because he almost took my cherry when I was drunk or that he's a big somebody and orphans on L2 learned to hate guys like that." Duo gestured at Heero. "Even you have reasons to hate him. You're jealous of him."  
  
Heero suddenly looked angry. "I don't make decisions based on emotions. I base them on facts. There are too many inconsistencies surrounding Milliardo Peacecraft and you should never forget that he is Relena's brother. He is loyal to her, whatever else he may be."  
  
"Relena, " Duo said absently as he wiped sweat from his brow and tried to take stock of his own condition. "You used to be interested in her. I'm surprised, knowing how devoted he is to her, that you aren't enlisting his help and petitioning her to speak for me."  
  
"If you are insinuating that I was ever sexually attracted to Relena Peacecraft," Heero retorted, even angrier. "You are wrong. I am homosexual. I don't have any interest in women. If you are alluding to her quest for total pacifism, my training had as it's mission statement the protection of peace and those who sought it. My interest in her was never more than that. That interest doesn't give her or her brother my unquestioning loyalty. I think all of us Gundam pilots learned how corrupt and 'convenient' ideals, people, and governments can become."  
  
Duo nodded, remembering the painful past and the betrayal of the colonists. "So," he said, "I think what you're saying is that we should cut out of here alone rather than risking the chance that Zech's isn't what he's making himself out to be?"  
  
"Yes," Heero replied.  
  
"Okay," Duo said, flipping his long braid behind one shoulder and putting hands on hips cockily. "I guess I can agree with that, so, if you think I'm ready and able...?"  
  
At Duo's agreement, Heero's anger disappeared. He asked, "How do you feel?"  
  
Duo shrugged. "Joints are sore, but I don't see that getting any better. I spent all of my young life in low gravity. There are just some things that won't toughen up."  
  
"I grew up in space and on Earth," Heero admitted, "But I trained in high gravity to enhance my genetic supplementation."  
  
"Meaning," Duo chuckled, "That Dr. J 'fixed' you because you were a scrawny weakling?"  
  
"Thin and tall, not scrawny," Heero amended and then laughed at Duo's _expression as Duo tried to imagine a weak, thin Heero.  
  
Duo blinked at Heero and then smiled. "I never get tired of hearing you laugh," he admitted. "It's so deep and warm, like a campfire on a cold day. It always gives me goose bumps. You should do it more often."  
  
"When this mission is over and you're free of all of this, I will," Heero promised.  
  
"Then clear me for duty, Captain Yuy," Duo urged, "And let's get this over with now."  
  
"You're cleared," Heero replied seriously. "Get your things together and I'll call for transport. We're leaving."  
  
Duo hadn't expected that. He'd been joking. "Zechs isn't going to like-"  
  
Heero scowled. "He isn't a consideration."  
  
"Okay! Okay!" Duo chuckled.  
  
Heero stayed in the yard and Duo went to gather up the few pieces of clothing Milliardo had managed to acquire for him. After slipping on a dark green turtle neck and a pair of black broadcloth pants, Duo jammed his feet into boots as his stomach turned into a knot. A mission, reunion with Wu Fei and, later, the other pilots. After four years of doing nothing but lounging in clubs and making up things to tell his doctors, Duo was getting more excitement and danger than most people ever saw in a lifetime.  
  
Duo caught himself grinning, despite his deeper trepidation. The old flame of Shinigami was eager for the danger, eager to feel again the rush it had experienced only during the war. It didn't care that the mission was to gather information to clear Duo's name. It cared only for the thrill. Duo controlled it with an effort, but the grin didn't leave his face. It was that grin that Milliardo saw when he confronted Duo at the front door.  
  
Duo's grin faded as he anticipated trouble, wondering what Milliardo was about to say to him. The man was frowning, one hand fidgeting in a pocket and the other clenched into a fist. "Thanks again, Zechs," Duo said uneasily. Up until then, Milliardo had been honorable, keeping what ever he felt for Duo under wraps. Duo wondered if some sort of last minute plea or revelation was about to be shot across his bow.  
  
"I had hoped that we could fight together," Milliardo said regretfully. "I came to you at Quatre's estate because the plot against you had been revealed to me and I knew that the injustice of it had to be righted. I've risked my position in the government. There will be questions when I return that I won't be able to answer to their satisfaction. I may face imprisonment."  
  
"Heero's right and you know it," Duo replied, feeling a sting of guilt, but enough of a soldier to know the reality of the situation "You ARE too high profile. We're not going to another backwater fishing village, we're going to be out where there are people who will recognize the second most known face on Earth and in the colonies."  
  
Milliardo retorted, "Relena's face is first, but I think yours is third, Duo Maxwell."  
  
Duo's grin returned as he tucked his long braid into the back of his sweater, pulled out a nondescript, blue cap from a pocket, and put it on his head. Pulling the brim low, he drawled. "Sumtimes, ya can hide in plain sight when ya wanna, Zechs. It's easy when yer use ta bein' a nobody." He left off the accent and shrugged. "Heero's the problem, actually, with that 'I'm a killer' expression of his, but he's been pretty good at keeping himself out of the news. Contrary to popular belief, most people DON'T read tabloids, so I doubt many people will remember that we had an orgy under a full moon and that he fed me grapes from a old girlfriend's skull."  
  
Milliardo winced. "How anyone can believe such-"  
  
Duo chuckled darkly. "They don't, they just like to read about it," Duo replied. "Unfortunately, though the story doesn't stick, the overall image of me as a weirdo, bad guy, does. I'm afraid Heero has joined the ranks with me."  
  
"At least tell me where you will be going next?" Milliardo asked. "If you won't let me help you clear your name by using my contacts and influence, then I'm not sure how you intend to accomplish it. I don't think you will find anyone else sympathetic to your case."  
  
"No?" Duo frowned. "I'd like to think that there are good men still in the government, men who would do something if they knew what was going on." He was suddenly irritated, angry, and he pushed by Milliardo abruptly, saying, "You had four years to help me, Zechs, and you decided not too. I don't think you can complain that you're being left out of things now."  
  
"The other pilots had four years as well, including your Heero," Zechs called after him. "Maybe you should remember that, too!"  
  
Duo wanted to shrug that comment off, but it followed him as he went to find Heero. The man wasn't far. He was standing on a slight rise of ground and putting away a cell phone. Digging hands into his pants pockets, Heero appraised Duo with a swift glance, noting his very small bundle of clothes. "That's all?"  
  
"All that matters," Duo grinned. "How far do we have to walk?"  
  
Heero looked pleased with himself. "I set up a transport on standby before I came here. I thought that there might be trouble."  
  
"Efficient," Duo replied with raised eyebrows. "Where's it going to land and what is it?"  
  
"Class 5 evac-mobile plane," Heero informed him. "It can land vertically."  
  
"That's not cheap. Quatre's going to kill you for spending all of his money," Duo joked with a bit of awe. "How long until touchdown?"  
  
Heero checked his watch. "Five minutes."  
  
"That close?" Duo felt his face flush with anticipation. He was a pilot through and through. He couldn't wait to get into the air.  
  
There was time to think. Duo wished that there wasn't. "Heero," he said slowly, "I know you had a life and all, and you probably didn't realize what kind of trouble I was in, but Quatre and Trowa... they knew... Quatre was there when they sentenced me. I always wondered why he didn't say anything, why he and Trowa, Hell, even Wu Fei didn't talk to me and ask-"  
  
Heero gave him a look and Duo swallowed hard. "Did you make any effort to contact anyone or ask for help?" he asked pointedly.  
  
Duo shook his head, "No."  
  
"You make the assumption that we knew, that we allowed you to suffer," Heero said. "You were found guilty and sentenced in a way that seemed rather light for someone plotting against a peaceful government. I didn't believe the charges against you, but I didn't feel that there was a need to run to your rescue when all you were given as punishment was a leg locator and a few doctors. I'm sure Quatre and the others felt the same way." Heero looked both annoyed and angry at Duo's display of doubt as he turned to watch the sky for the transport. "If you had called on me, nothing would have stood in the way of my coming to your aide."  
  
"Maybe it's just the way he talks," Duo thought softly.  
  
"What?" Heero glanced at him and then went back to watching the sky. "Are you referring to Milliardo?"  
  
"Yeah," Duo replied, arched his back, and put his hands behind his head as he sighed and shook his head despondently. "He says a few words and makes me doubt everything."  
  
"He's a politician as well as a soldier," Heero reminded him.  
  
Duo chuckled darkly. "A lethal combination."  
  
"Yes," Heero agreed and then, pointing to a spot in the sky. "There it is."  
  
Duo didn't try to look. His sensitive eyes had grown used to the sun, somewhat, but they still hurt in direct light. It was his ears that told him that Heero was right. The familiar hum of a transport vehicle sent another thrill through him. Any moment, he told himself, he was going to leave the bounds of Earth and the uncertainty of Milliardo Peacecraft behind. He would be in Heero's company and, soon, in the company of the other pilots. His thrill of anticipation heightened. A mission and his old comrades. It was as if the clock was turning back, he thought, taking him to a time when he had been someone; someone who had been both useful and strong.  
  
"Heero," Duo said quickly as they backed up out of the yard to give the transport room to land, "Sorry, okay? I just think too much about what could have been. I know it doesn't do any good."  
  
Heero turned and cupped Duo's chin with a firm hand. His _expression was fiercer. "Don't doubt me!" he told Duo. "I love you. I would never hurt you!"  
  
Duo nodded, feeling tears. He brushed them away as the wind of the transport whipped up their hair and clothes as it landed. As soon as the ramp lowered, Heero had hold of Duo's hand and was pulling him up it at a dead run. Stopping at the top, they met the pilot; a young, freckled, red head in a flight suit.  
  
Heero slapped a plastic card into the man's hand. The man looked down at it and its display of glowing numbers. "I'm buying your transport," Heero told him, and then added, eying the man's jacket, "and your flight jacket. I'll pick up the paper work later."  
  
The amount must have been more than generous. The man's eyes were saucers as he stammered incoherently and slipped off his jacket. Heero took it and then shoved the man down the ramp. The man barely avoided getting hurt as Heero opened up an access hatch, slapped the retrieval switch for the ramp, and then the emergency auto pilot take off.  
  
Duo staggered as the ship did a quick vertical lift with engines roaring. Heero kept his balance expertly and hooked a hand under Duo's arm. As he pulled Duo up towards the cockpit, he used his free hand to drop the flight jacket over Duo's shoulders. "You'll need this," he said simply. "It's cold where we're going."  
  
Duo expected to sit in the co pilot's seat, but Heero guided him to the jump seat instead. Duo felt a flare of anger, but Heero forestalled any outburst. As he jumped into the pilot's seat, he called back, "You'll need to be free to move around the ship if we have any trouble. I might have to pull maneuvers and I'm not sure how secure the cargo is. You need to use the screen to your left to review your mission."  
  
Heero flipped a disk over his shoulder, Duo caught it despite the shaking of the ship and a roll to the left maneuver as Heero set course. Heero grinned at the proof that Duo still had a pilot's hand eye coordination.  
  
"I'm going to verbally give you the mission parameters, and tell you what maps to bring up on the screen. I'll verbally give you the codes as well. You'll need to enter them on that disk," Heero explained as he eased the ship into a high altitude for maximum speed. He didn't call into a tower and Duo knew that there wasn't a flight plan submitted. Running into another ship was a distinct possibility. "I hope you still have an excellent memory?"  
  
"You like green beans and you think nobody knows about your obsession with Japanese opera music," Duo retorted as he popped in the disk and strapped himself into the jumps eat. "You had a favorite pair of socks and you used to have a problem with burning too much fuel on reentry."  
  
"Were you that obsessed with me during the war?" Heero wondered with a chuckle.  
  
Duo, caught off guard in the middle of a joke, paused, and then replied softly, "Yeah, I was."  
  
Heero glanced back at him briefly and then said, "You hated washing your hair because it took too long. You used to tap Deathscythe on the nose before every mission and call him your 'Big Buddy' when no one was looking. Since you mentioned vegetables, you use to scoop your peas into a napkin and pretend that you had eaten them. ... I was obsessed with you too. I wish... I wish I had known... that I hadn't cared so much about throttling my emotions... "  
  
"Stop it!" Duo growled. "You're being awfully self indulgent today, Heero. You know we both did what we had to. We can be sorry about lost time all we want, but we were fighting a war. There wasn't time." He sighed, seeing Heero's dejected back. "I don't have to tell you that. You're just saying this stuff to make me feel better about you being a stone cold bastard all that time. I don't hate you for it, Heero, so just let it go, K?"  
  
Heero nodded and didn't reply. He gave Duo the location of the building plans and then fell silent to allow Duo to memorize the mission. "The old, 'slip through the vent system'," Duo chuckled after a time. "You have laser cutters and those nice calipers for deactivating the security force shields?"  
  
"Of course," Heero replied.  
  
"Good," Duo smiled and then, after Heero gave him the codes, "Well, it looks pretty straight forward. Bitch of a comp system. They must have some other goodies besides 'why we screwed Duo Maxwell' in that system."  
  
"Just download the files I listed," Heero replied sternly. "No hot dogging."  
  
"Yes, Mom," Duo grinned and saluted Heero. "I should hate this," he admitted as he puzzled over the codes, "but it feels good, really good... maybe I do need my head examined."  
  
"You've grown strong again," Heero told him. "Now you need the confidence to go along with it. I know you can do this, Duo. You've done more difficult missions with bullet wounds and installations full of armed Oz soldiers. This is just a database site for government officials."  
  
"Walk in the park," Duo agreed. He did need this. He did need to know if he could be his old self, be a man, do something that mattered. He just hoped that he wouldn't let himself, and Heero, down.


	25. Tiger

"Ready?" Heero called back to Duo as he hovered the ship some distance from the installation.   
  
Duo zipped up his flight jacket and then hung onto a strap by the hatch as he braced his knees. "Ready," he replied tightly.   
  
"Love you, Duo!" Heero said as he turned back to the controls.   
  
Duo grinned through the tension and replied, "Love you too, Heero. I won't let you down. I can do this."   
  
"We wouldn't be here if I doubted that."   
  
The ship dropped like a stone. Duo's feet almost left the deck. He gripped the strap with both hands, his stomach somewhere near the vicinity of his throat. As soon as the ship leveled out and stopped its decent, the hatch opened.  Air whipped Duo's braid around and blew his bangs back from his excited, amethyst eyes.   
  
Duo didn't wait for any cue from Heero. He was a veteran. He dropped the few feet to the ground and then began running for the woods nearby, gravel crunching and  the force of the ship's sudden ascent into the heavens almost shoving him onto his face.   
  
Duo felt his knees aching, tendons and muscles straining, but he refused to slow, afraid that someone would come to investigate. The cold was bone chilling and Duo was glad to have the jacket.  It protected his body as well as he bolted through undergrowth and felt the rake of thorn bushes more than once.   
  
When Duo reached the building, he hugged the shadows and waited for his breathing to slow and the sweat to dry on his face. He shivered convulsively, hunched and holding his hands under his armpits for warmth. When he was sure that he was completely rested, he  went over his memorized map and began searching for an access vent.   
  
A great deal of the instillation was sunk into the rock. Without vents and air systems, the people working there would have quickly become ill or even died depending on how deep they were. Those vents were an unavoidable vulnerability, but there were defenses. Sometimes, they had laser shields and alarms when the vents were required to be large enough to move large amounts of air. Vents in smaller installations had a simpler defense, they were made too small for most men to enter. Duo saw quickly that the latter was the case with this building.   
  
Duo used a tool to loosen the bolts of the vent, measuring the size of it with his eyes. He was feeling a bit of awe for Heero's thorough knowledge of the mission. He must have known the exact size already and had calculated that Duo would fit.   
  
Duo stopped moving. A wind whipped over him, but it didn't rival the sudden chill of realization that swept through him. He tried to deny it to himself. There were many installations with vents of the same sort. The chances of there being two such missions with two such requirements... Duo went grim and his heart became a lump of ice in his chest as he finished unscrewing the bolts. It was too late to question the mission. When he had the information and was standing in front of Heero again, then was the time to demand some answers.   
  
The vent cover came off. Duo's hands were shaking so much that he dropped it.  It clattered loudly and Duo, tensing, waited for sounds of discovery. When none came, he pulled off the jacket and then squeezed himself into the vent.   
  
In space, a man couldn't be claustrophobic. Life was spent in and out of space suits and shoved into cramped living quarters on space stations. Duo didn't feel any trepidation as he slid head first down a tube that enclosed him completely all around and barely gave him enough room to breathe. He knew a juncture somewhere far below would give him more room, but until then, he had to force his body, with minimal traction on slick metal, down the narrow vent. He tried not to imagine what would happen if he became stuck. Only the smell of a rotting corpse would alert people of the fact.   
  
Duo had too much time to think about Heero. Was the man double crossing him, tricking him, making him complete a mission he had only hinted at when they had been at Duo's apartment? How far could he, Duo, believe in coincidence?   
  
Duo wondered what he would do if it were true. Heero loved him, or did he? Was that a trick too? Duo remembered warm lips and warm hands; eyes the color of  deep blue oceans looking at him with... no, Duo was certain that Heero loved him, yet he was also certain that completing a mission was still Heero's end all be all in life. He was still a soldier. He might have had a lover teaching him how to be something other than the machine that Dr. J. had created for his Gundam Wing, but it was a thin crust over his all powerful sense of duty.   
  
Duo wondered in what direction Heero's sense of duty had taken him. If this was a trick, if he was getting information other than proof that he hadn't been a unification sympathizer, then who was that information for and to what purpose? Duo remembered Heero's condemnation of Zechs and Relena along with him. He didn't trust them. Duo wished now that he had questioned Heero further about that. He had fought for Relena as a 'bringer of peace'. If he wasn't able to trust her now, then giving her information wouldn't make sense. So, Duo wondered, if he was getting information under false pretenses, then who WOULD it be for?   
  
Duo reached the juncture. He gratefully squeezed out of the narrower vent and let his body relax in the larger one. Going over his mental map, Duo then went left, hoping that the place didn't have any over zealous people working late. He had all but promised himself that he wouldn't kill. Duo want to keep that promise.   
  
Duo heard the rumble of thunder, the vent shivering with the vibration of the sound. Good, Duo thought. If any system picked up on his activity they might pass it off as surges in the system from the storm. Everything was going perfect so far. Duo didn't allow himself to trust it enough to relax as he took two turns and then stopped at a vent grate. Duo cursed silently when he saw how very small it was. He was thin, but he wondered if Heero had made his first mistake and he wasn't going to be thin enough to fit through.   
  
Very faintly, Duo heard the tapping of keys. Someone was there in the room, but not very close. He still had a chance, he thought confidently. Computer rooms in installations like the one he was in were often large rooms full of banks of servers, storage units, and work stations. It was possible to slip into such a room, do his infiltration, and escape undetected.   
  
Duo checked his knife in the sheath at his belt, his garroting wire in his braid, and then touched his chest. He wasn't sure why he did the last motion, only that it was an old habit when he was nervous or needed luck. His fingers rubbed his skin just below his breastbone as if searching for something comforting. It always ended up making him feel frustrated instead, and he didn't know why that should be any more than he knew why he did the ritual to begin with.   
  
Duo used a tool to get the screws of the vent undone. Pulling it out quietly, he set it beside him and then looked through the opening. He had been right. The room was sectioned off and he was above a cubicle. Duo smiled. Perfect. All he had to do was drop down and begin work.   
  
"Stupid coffee machine!" a voice grumbled and someone suddenly appeared in Duo's view and sat down heavily in a chair. Duo had a view of a balding man's head, a white lab coat, and assorted I.D. tags as the man scooted forward and began typing on a computer keyboard. A schematic displayed itself on the screen, moved, and changed viewpoints. "How the Hell can someone work late without coffee?" the man muttered.   
  
Duo sat back in the vent, his hands turned into fists of frustration. This wasn't the war, he thought. Eliminating that man would be murder, pain and simple. Duo had often planted bombs knowing his target was filled with harmless men and women working along side the soldiers. His worst nightmares were often haunted by their many faces. He couldn't bring himself to add to that parade of ghosts.   
  
Decision made, Duo squeezed through the vent opening feet first, very slowly, very quietly, using his restored arm muscles to take his weight while his hands gripped the edge of the slippery, metal vent. When his body was almost completely through, Duo cocked back a foot and simply went, "Ahem." When the man looked up, startled, Duo let loose with his foot and caught him on the chin. The man was thrown sideways and then he went limp, hanging half out of his chair and unconscious.   
  
Duo dropped down beside the man, checked his pulse, and was glad to feel it beating strongly.   
  
"Sam?" A voice called from across the room. "Did you get that coffee maker working?"   
  
Duo deepened his voice as much as he could and growled back irritably, "No!"   
  
"What kind of damned engineer can't even fix a coffee maker, for Christ's Sake?!" the voice snarled back and then was silent. Duo heard the tapping of keys start up again and he breathed a sigh of relief, sweat running down his face.   
  
Duo sat on the unconscious man's lap as he slipped his disk into the computer and began searching for the information codes. When the download bar popped up he almost exclaimed, 'Shit!' out loud as he saw how much time it would take. Fifty minutes! Fifty damn minutes he had to sit and wait while a man sat not five yards away ready to discover him at any moment!   
  
Duo propped the unconscious man up, folded his arms across his chest, and put him in an attitude of a man having fallen asleep. Duo then slipped under the desk between the man's legs and tried to blend with the shadows.   
  
Time ticked by. Again, Duo had too much time to think. Simple information about himself shouldn't be taking that long to down load. He knew that he couldn't avoid the realization that the information he was getting, at risk of his freedom and maybe his life, might be something that didn't have anything to do with him.   
  
Duo felt his heart clench and he stifled a sob against his upraised knees. He couldn't fall apart now! He couldn't let emotions make him vulnerable. He had to keep his mind where it belonged, on the mission. Whether it was his or someone else's mission was irrelevant. Duo was committed. He had to finish.   
  
It was something, he supposed, that Heero hadn't insisted that he upload to a remote site. Heero wouldn't have underestimated Duo's ability to figure things out during the retrieval of the information. Heero wanted to see him again, hopefully to explain. Duo prayed that Heero's explanation was going to be good enough to allow him to keep loving the man.   
  
"Trust him, he told me," Duo whispered, a mere breath in the near silence. "I will, a little longer."   
  
"Sam?!" an irritated voice growled and a man rounded the corner of the cubicle. Duo shrank back. "You were supposed to download those files to me ten minutes ago!" The man stopped. Duo could only see his feet. "Oh, I guess you are... and you're asleep at the switch again. Why they don't fire you..." Duo heard a pen scraping across paper, heard the paper rattle, and then saw the feet walk away.   
  
Cautiously, Duo peeked out from under the table. His victim was still asleep, but a paper had been taped to his balding forehead. The note read,  "When you wake up, and if no one has fired your lazy ass, upload file 3344995b4 to me." In any other circumstances, Duo would have laughed. Instead, he pulled the note off of the man, feeling a little sorry for him, and then turned to see how his download was progressing.   
  
Ten minutes left. That ten minutes seemed to take an eternity as Duo listened for the man in the room to approach again or for his victim to wake up. He sighed in relief when The bar finally flashed complete and none of his worst fears materialized. Pulling out his disk, Duo shoved it into his pants and then looked up at the vent. Getting back inside of it was not going to be easy.   
  
Duo climbed up on top of the unconscious man, feeling uncomfortable at the close contact. He was forced to  balance for a moment, with his crotch almost in the man's face, as he found a place to put his feet. Once his footing was secure, he slowly straightened, making a quick survey of the room. He couldn't see the other occupant of the room, but he felt far from safe as he reached up and gripped the edge of the vent.   
  
To get into the vent required an acrobatic move that, during the war, he wouldn't have thought twice about accomplishing. He had been very limber back then, used to the streets of L2 and the precarious life there that had often required him to swing from fire escapes and the bones of old buildings and to squeeze into spaces that hadn't been big enough for a rat let alone a child. Now, he could only hope that the ghost of that skill was going to be enough to get him to safety.   
  
Duo swung his legs, hanging in mid air. The vent made a crunching sound and Duo grimaced in trepidation. Quickly, he pulled his body up. It was difficult, almost impossible, to inch his way to another handhold inside the vent and to squeeze his body back inside. Once he had accomplished it, he felt a thrill of pride and a flaring of pain. He had stressed muscles and scraped and cut himself on the sharp edges of the vent. He was dripping blood. Duo ignored it as he listened and made certain that he hadn't been over heard. He had made a lot of noise. He wondered if the man was deaf, until he saw him stand up and stretch and saw that he was wearing headphones. What ever he was listening to had drowned out Duo's noises.   
  
"Damn, you're lucky tonight!" Duo muttered to himself as he began inching his way down the vent system. Not lucky in love though, he amended, and began to plan what he was going to say to the ex pilot of Wing when they met up again.   
  
Going up through the narrow part of the vent, Duo kept his eyes on the exit and refused to consider getting stuck as he painfully inched up the slick metal surface. He would make it, he kept repeating to himself, even when he discovered that the section nearest the surface was wet with condensation. Failure wasn't an option even when his progress was soon reduced to two inches forward and one inch back as he kept slipping.   
  
Finally, Duo reached the surface. He climbed out into blessed chill air and shivered convulsively as the sweat dripping down his body was almost turned instantly into ice. He threw himself into the coat that was still there and was about to collapse onto the hard roof to rest, when he heard the sound of engines roaring above him.   
  
A search light picked him out with a narrow beam and Duo staggered as wind almost flattened him. Down thrusters came close to frying him on all sides as the transport did a perfect descent directly over him. The ramp was extended, making a dangerous wind tunnel for the ship, but the pilot expertly compensated as Duo grabbed the lip of the ramp, pulled himself on, and then clawed his way into the transport despite the turbulence and shifting deck.   
  
The ramp retracted immediately and the hatch almost closed on Duo's backside. Duo knew what came next. He tried to dive for a security strap, but he was too late. The ship's thrusters went to full power before Duo could brace his knees. The last sight Duo had, before lights exploded behind his eyes and darkness descended, was the deck rushing up to slam into his face.   
  
\+   
  
Duo awoke feeling as if one side of his face was one large bruise. It throbbed sickeningly as he slowly opened his eyes. Sally Po frowned down at him, flashed a light into his pupils, and looked pleased when he blinked rapidly.   
  
"Nothing broken," she announced briskly. "How do you feel, Duo?"   
  
"Terrible," Duo groaned as he tried to piece together how he had ended up in a sterile operating room with Sally Po. It was very difficult. "What-"   
  
"Heero brought you in," Sally told him as she busied herself with putting some instruments away.   
  
"Heero...." Duo remembered then and he tried to sit up quickly. The room whirled and he found himself on his back again with Sally's hand on his shoulder.   
  
"No you don't, mister!" Sally warned. You just went through surgery and you have a nasty concussion."   
  
"Surgery?"   
  
Sally leaned over Duo again and pulled a sheet up under his chin. "We couldn't remove the leg locator without replacing a great deal of bone and damaging nerves so I operated and attached a jammer on the locator. Now you send out a signal, but the wrong signal. It can pass as low level radio waves."   
  
"Great!" Duo groaned. "More hardware under my skin!"   
  
Sally looked serious as she said, "Well, I could just remove your lower leg and foot if the thought is that disturbing to you?"   
  
"No, thanks" Duo replied acidly and then, trying to think past the pain and the drugs from his surgery, he asked, "Where is Heero?"   
  
Sally replied firmly, "He's nearby, but I'm going to fill you in on a few things before he comes in. He wasn't cleared to do so-"   
  
"Where the fuck is he?!" Duo shouted in her face, ignoring the effect that had on his throbbing skull. "He double crossed me! I want to see him explain why he did it!"   
  
"He didn't double cross you," Sally explained patiently. "If you would just listen-"   
  
"I want Heero. Now!" Duo shouted, face going red and the room dimming with the force of his fury.   
  
"I'm right here," Heero said softly as he came into the room. He jerked his chin at the door, indicating that Sally should leave.   
  
Sally frowned disapprovingly, but then sighed, "Call me when you are through shouting. Duo is still recovering and needs to be monitored."   
  
"Understood," Heero replied. He waited until she was gone before he  approached Duo.   
  
"I realized that I wasn't just getting information about myself when I downloaded," Duo told him angrily, "but you knew that I would, so why didn't you come clean to me BEFORE the mission? I could have aborted right then and there and told you to go take a flying fuck!"   
  
"I knew that you wouldn't," Heero admitted quietly and he wasn't meeting Duo's eyes.   
  
"Come here!" Duo demanded. When Heero moved to stand by the table Duo lay on, Duo reached up quickly and grabbed his chin hard. Heero winced as Duo forced him to meet his eyes. "Time for a confession, Heero! Time to tell me that you were using me all along!"   
  
Heero met Duo's gaze steadily. Though his _expression was set hard, Duo could see something powerful moving behind Heero's eyes. "That's an illogical conclusion. I could have simply found a female Preventer close to the required build to complete the mission."   
  
"Who had the upper body strength to get back into the vent after retrieval?" Duo scoffed. "I don't think so!"   
  
"I wasn't aware that you were so familiar with female physiology," Heero replied.   
  
Duo glared. "Are you making a JOKE, Yuy, because I don't think this is the freakin' time for it!"   
  
"Duo, it's true that I did take advantage of the situation," Heero confessed, "But that was at Sally Po's orders. You needed the information in the government database and the Preventers needed information concerning certain subversive groups. Duo, lives will be saved because you retrieved that information."   
  
"Why didn't you explain?" Duo demanded and he couldn't help the anguish in his voice. The drugs were playing havoc with his mind. He couldn't even keep Heero in focus. His grip on the man loosened and he let his hand drop. "Do you think that I don't care about people's lives? Do you think, that if you had explained, I wouldn't have jumped at the chance to help out willingly?"   
  
"You refused the first time I brought it up," Heero reminded him.   
  
"Yet you still thought-"   
  
"I did what was necessary!" Heero cut him off sharply.   
  
They stared at each other, Heero like stone and Duo panting and trying to focus on the argument. Finally, Duo turned his face sharply away. "This isn't the war," Duo complained.   
  
"It is!" Heero snarled and Duo looked at him again, startled. "The war never ended, Duo, we're still fighting it!" He reached down and gripped Duo's hand, leaning close. "We fought against corrupt men who wanted to take away our freedom. Can't you see that they are still trying to do that, that you are a casualty of their grab for power? They have to be stopped! You agreed to the mission. You agreed of your own free will. I didn't force you, Duo. I won't apologize for using the opportunity to retrieve such vital information or for keeping it a secret from you for fear that you would react just this way and refuse the mission all together!"   
  
"That extra time could have gotten me arrested," Duo replied. "I wasn't expecting it."   
  
"You are the best at infiltration," Heero told him. "I knew that you would succeed. That's why I considered you for the mission from the very start."   
  
"Do you think flattery will make me feel better about this?" Duo demanded hotly.   
  
"I did what had to be done," Heero told him, unbendingly. "Accept or reject it. Accept or reject me. I can't tell you that I wouldn't have done it, knowing your reaction now, and I won't tell you that I'm sorry, except to say that I'm sorry that I had to involve you when you didn't wish to be."   
  
Heero was very close. Duo stared at him, searched his face, tried to see the man who loved him, who had promised not to use him. He reached up with both arms and wrapped them around Heero's neck. He pulled the man down against his chest and began to cry, his control broken by pain and drugs. "Don't make me hate you, Heero, please!" he wept. "Don't do this to me!"   
  
Duo felt himself lifted into Heero's arms and they clung together. Heero replied and his voice wasn't very steady, "You know what kind of man I am, Duo. I can't change. I will always strive for peace, no matter what the cost. It's a part of me. If you can't accept that, then you can't accept me."   
  
"Heero the Hero," Duo wept. "I don't want to get trampled every time you have to save the universe."   
  
Heero kissed Duo's face and then his lips, arms like steel bands as they held Duo's wiry body close to him. "I can't give it up for you, Duo. I would give anything else.... anything but my need to help other people be free and at peace."   
  
Duo sniffled, feeling as if he were a child. He wiped at the tears on his face, hating the drugs that were making him unable to stop them. "Suddenly I'm the bad guy. Suddenly, I'm selfish Duo who doesn't give a rat's butt about anyone enough to let his love go off to fight or to help him out when he needs it. That isn't right, Heero. I'm not the bad guy. You used me. You lied to me. There isn't any `us' if I can't trust you. You can wrap it up and make it pretty, but that's how things are."   
  
"It hurts," Heero said softly.   
  
"It's supposed to when you break up," Duo replied bitterly.   
  
"Are we doing that?"   
  
"Maybe not," Duo replied, feeling fresh tears, "Maybe we had to be a couple to begin with."   
  
"I can't change," Heero insisted and Duo heard desolation in the man's voice.   
  
"I know," Duo sobbed and he clung to Heero even tighter. "I know."   
  
"He needs to rest," Sally broke in apologetically.  Duo recoiled from Heero, embarrassed and ashamed that she was seeing him cry. He wiped anxiously at his face and turned away as Sally said, "If it's any explanation, Duo... I ordered him to retrieve that information. He didn't want to. He formally protested. But Heero knows, just as I think that you do, that it was necessary."   
  
"I don't want to talk about this right now!" Duo growled and pulled the sheet up around himself. "I can't think. Stupid drugs!"   
  
There was a silence and then Heero asked tentatively. "Will you want to talk about it later?" It was a plea. Heero wanted to know if it was really over between them without any chance for reconciliation.   
  
Duo let him hang in the wind for a long moment, but it didn't make him feel any better, so he finally snapped. "Yeah, later! Now get the Hell out!"


	26. Ghosts

"I want my ankle to stop hurting," Duo growled as he limped to his bed and sat down heavily. He whipped his hair over his shoulder and attacked it with a brush, beginning to unsnarl days of untended tangles and knots.  
  
"I gave you medication," Sally pointed out. Sitting in the one chair in the bare, barracks like room. She didn't look relaxed in her starched Preventers uniform. "If you're in pain, it's your own doing."  
  
"I don't like taking mind dulling medication when I'm in a unfamiliar place," Duo retorted, "and running from government troops." He winced as his brush snagged.  
  
"I could do that for you," Sally suggested.  
  
Duo glared. "Nobody touches the hair!" he snapped.  
  
"Except Heero?" Sally replied with an arched, blonde eyebrow that seemed very judgmental.  
  
Duo stopped his motions and said, "If you're going to try and say something about two guys together being disgusting or something... me and Heero are not together anymore, so can it! I've decided to stick with women."  
  
"Which one?" Sally wondered sarcastically.  
  
Duo glared and blushed. "I had a few-"  
  
"Don't even try," she retorted. "I'm a doctor, remember?"  
  
"Friends," Duo finished tightly. "They could be something more if I wanted it that way. I was told that I would get better in time, that I could-"  
  
"I'm sure," Sally said dryly, cutting him off again, but then added, "So, how long are you going to pretend that Heero doesn't mean anything to you? I need him competent, both mentally and physically, not drinking himself into a stupor because he thinks you hate him."  
  
"He's drinking?" Duo was astonished, even though he tried to hide it by turning slightly away and attacking his hair with the brush again. "That's not like him."  
  
"When has he ever been in this kind of situation?" Sally wondered in exasperation.  
  
"David.." Duo began bitterly.  
  
"Do you honestly think he feels the same way for you that he did for David?" Sally scoffed and then stood up. "Look, I'm not your shrink, or your babysitter. Take the drugs or don't take the drugs, it's up to you, but stop messing with the head of the best agent I have. Make up and screw like bunnies, because that's what you two really want to do. Cut out the middle crap. He loves you, you love him. Heero has a job to do. He saves lives, Duo! Sorry he has to force you to be a hero too, but that's life, right? Sometimes, we have to do something good and worthwhile whether we like it or not!"  
  
"He lied to me," Duo grated. "He used me. Sorry you don't get that."  
  
"Don't you mean sorry you were such a pathetic shit that you had to be forced?!" Sally snarled back.  
  
Duo's jaw clenched. "I'm not the bad guy here, so shut up."  
  
Sally shook her head sharply as she headed for the door, waving a hand dismissively at Duo. "This entire unit was mobilized to help you and to root out the corruption in the government. People at Quatre's estate and elsewhere died for you and for that cause. I guess I was expecting you to be grateful and to appreciate being given a chance to give something back."  
  
"Must be nice to have such a black and white view of the world!" Duo called after her, but she was already gone, slamming the door behind her.  
  
Duo threw his brush and it clattered against the slick metal, bounced, and skittered across the bare floor. He rubbed hands over his face, saying to himself in bitter amazement, "Jeez, I'm throwing tantrums like a little girl! I'm not taking any more damned drugs!"  
  
Duo glared at the door and then collapsed onto his back on the bed, one arm thrown over his eyes as he tried to block out the light of a glaring bulb as well as block out the truth; that Sally, in her own rough way, was right.  
  
Duo tried to make his bandaged ankle more comfortable and failed. He had spent two days in the windowless, below ground, bunker installation, Preventer and special core personnel prowling the corridors and all sensitive areas restricted access. The first day he had spent asleep, recovering from surgery, but now he was restless and full of questions that no one was answering. He had thought that Sally had come to enlighten him, but, instead, she had checked his body over with clinical thoroughness and offered nothing in the way of information.  
  
"Ours is not to question why, ours is but to do or die," Duo muttered, knowing that statement completely summed up Heero Yuy. Heero would always be happiest fighting the good fight. He didn't need to question, didn't want to. He was exactly like Sally Po. It was all black and white.   
  
Duo was too suspicious, too much the survivalist to ever settle for anything at face value. He couldn't help thinking of his own skin, even when he was trying to save the universe, and knowing all the facts so that he could preserve his life, while doing good, was second nature. Heero had forced him to suspend that consideration, had denied him information, had endangered him without his permission. The stark truth on top of all of that was that Duo didn't WANT to fight any longer. He had lost his childhood to the war. He didn't want to lose the rest of his life to keeping the peace. He wanted to pass on the sword and Heero not only didn't, but had forced the sword back into Duo's hand. It was something Duo was finding it hard to forgive.  
  
The door buzzed. Duo didn't feel like seeing anyone else. He needed to think. When the door opened, he growled in exasperation, until he saw that it was Heero. "If you're drunk, you can turn right back around."  
  
Heero frowned, confused, but he didn't retreat. His dark, blue eyes studied Duo. "I wanted to see how you were doing. I was concerned when you didn't answer the door."  
  
Duo made an impatient gesture of one hand. "I'm fine, so you can go."  
  
Heero bent and picked up the hairbrush. He brought it to Duo and tossed it a short distance so that it bounced on the bed beside Duo. "I also came to talk to you about the information on the disk."  
  
"Finally? I'm glad I rate a debriefing," Duo snapped and crossed his arms over his chest defiantly. "All right. Go ahead."  
  
"I don't understand why you are always so angry," Heero replied softly and looked suddenly at a loss.  
  
Duo felt his heart ache, but he kept it bitter and hard as he said, "I thought I was getting back to my old self. I thought, finally, I was the one in control of me, not some shadow who's name I don't know. You showed me how much of a lie that was. I don't understand why you don't understand how wrong that is."  
  
It was clear that Heero was struggling inwardly. "I don't want to lose you, but I don't know how to make you love me."  
  
"You can't MAKE me," Duo told him.   
  
Heero met his eyes, frowning. "I think-"  
  
"That's your problem, both you and Sally," Duo snapped. "All you do is think when it comes to a mission. You do what ever is necessary. Can't you see that it's wrong to sacrifice, to use and abuse, the very people you're trying to save? When did I start being worth less than everyone else, Heero? When did it become okay for me to lose my life and my freedom of choice for the greater good? Why can't you save me too?"  
  
Heero stood rigidly, a frown mark between his eyes. "I-" Heero stopped and swallowed hard.  
  
"You know I'm right," Duo said. "I'm sorry that your training won't let you accept that." He cleared his throat and repositioned his ankle to make it more comfortable. "Now, are you going to debrief me or not? I need to go to a therapy session, in a half hour, for my ankle."  
  
"Wu Fei is here and making plans. Quatre and Trowa will be planet side in two days to help us implement them," Heero replied with the automatic correctness of a soldier.  
  
"If you're going to tell me that the information is classified, I'm limping out of here, right now," Duo growled warningly. "Tell me what the information was."  
  
"Sealed court documents. Transactions. Orders. Encrypted messages," Heero replied. "There was video of you talking to an anti-unification sympathizer and of you fighting, half naked, with the soldiers who came to arrest you."  
  
"What..." Duo's face went white. He glared away from Heero, jaw working, and then he said, "I was drunk. I'm not sure what happened."  
  
"The orders for your arrest were signed by Relena Peacecraft," Heero continued, "and given to the commanding officer by Milliardo Peacecraft."  
  
Duo's mouth hung open and he looked at Heero, startled. "Come again?! I was with Milliardo, Heero! He couldn't have!"  
  
Heero replied carefully. "You told me that you don't remember much of what happened that night. You still don't remember how you found yourself in Milliardo's bedroom?"  
  
"No," Duo admitted.  
  
"It's possible," Heero surmised, "that you were drugged and taken there."  
  
"Why?" Duo wondered. "How does that make any sense? It was minor scandal for Zechs!"   
  
"Was it?" Heero wondered. "or did it give both Relena and Milliardo cover for their operation?"  
  
"Why would they need a cover?" Duo demanded. "Heero! I was drunk and I wanted to lose my virginity! I went to Zechs. I know you don't want to accept that, but it's probably true!" He shoved his loose hair behind his shoulders and sat up to face Heero squarely. "Yeah, Duo Maxwell was a slut that night, but he didn't go rubbing up against anti-unification sympathizers!" Duo thought for a moment and then asked. "Did you check the time of the signing of the order and compare it to the time on that video of me?"  
  
"No," Heero replied, intrigued, "but I will."  
  
"If the signing is earlier than the video then we have something to go on," Duo explained. "We also need a motive. Why smear me? What did they hope to gain?"  
  
"That's simple enough," Heero replied. "You were bait in a trap. Relena and Milliardo stood for peace and so did the Gundam pilots. Their enemies were our enemies. They were a new government. To survive, they most certainly had to identify the forces arrayed against them both in their own government and among the military. According to records, Santoro was the first to snap at the bait, asking to preside over your punishment and monitoring to further his vendetta against you."  
  
Duo nodded, but he was going pale. "Why let it go on for four years, though? Why not arrest their enemies?"  
  
Heero thought about that and then offered, "On what charges? It's one thing to know who your enemy is, and another to eliminate him. As long as they kept their agenda hidden, and didn't make overt attacks, Relena was powerless to do anything more than keep watch on them. Records show that Relena proposed a stay of sentence for you several times, essentially re-baiting the trap and seeing who opposed or actively attempted to impugn your character to make that option unviable. A freed Gundam pilot, grateful and loyal to Relena Peacecraft, is something an enemy would actively try to prevent. They would want her as vulnerable as possible to their attacks."  
  
"Why have her enemies waited so long? Why haven't they moved against her already?" Duo wondered.  
  
"All battles aren't fought on the battlefield," Heero explained. "There have been people openly trying to discredit her and her government. That's why it has been the goal of certain people to discredit the Gundam pilots and all things concerned with the war. It is much easier to conquer if popular support is taken away from those you are attempting to conquer."  
  
"Something changed," Duo said softly, remembering the doctors and how they had suddenly ceased to play the game any longer. "Four years of dangling me on a stick and no one had the guts to devour me completely, until lately. Someone must be getting ready to make their move."  
  
Heero nodded and then met Duo's eyes keenly. Duo suddenly understood. "That's what the other information was about, wasn't it?" Duo demanded. "You're finding out who the enemy is too, just like Relena."  
  
Heero nodded again and admitted. "Relena is a pacifist. She believes in defusing situations rather than confronting them and extinguishing them all together. Her view is that there will always be factions aligned against her, so meeting each threat with violence is useless and disruptive to society."  
  
"I thought that the Preventers worked FOR Relena, Heero," Duo pointed out suspiciously. "You're talking as if you're working against her."  
  
Heero was silent for a long time. Duo watched his face, and, when he decided that it wasn't going to give anything away, Duo said with certainty, "You're still a part of the Tiger Cell, aren't you? It's the Tiger Cell that's acting against Relena's enemies, not the Preventers."  
  
"We're acting against the enemies of the people, Duo," Heero replied, confirming it. "Pacifism only works in a perfect world. The sheep need a shepherd to protect them from the wolves."  
  
Duo glared. "The people aren't sheep, Heero, and neither am I."  
  
Heero sat on the edge of the bed in exasperation. "What should we do then, Duo, sit and close our eyes? Pretend that nothing is happening? The Tiger Cell is a government sanctioned branch of the Preventers. We are an elite force. We were given the mission of rooting out and destroying threats against the people. That mission hasn't changed now even though it's the government we are fighting against." Heero looked down at his hands in his lap. "You want the world to be a happy, safe place, where you can live a normal life, but I'm afraid that's being as blind as Relena and her quest for pacifism. It's Fantasy. Evil never really goes away and people like us, who have the skill to stop it, can't rest when there are people in danger from it. It's wrong to turn your back."  
  
"Who said anything about turning my back?" Duo wondered sharply.  
  
"Isn't that what ignoring trouble to lead a normal life is all about?" Heero retorted.  
  
"I just wanted to be asked, I never said that I would have refused to do it," Duo told him angrily. "You just assumed that I was a coward. 'Nice', Heero." Duo shifted on the bed to get further away from Heero as he glared. "Sure, I want a normal life. Sure I want to put down the sword and never pick it up again. Wanting that, though, and letting people die to get it are two different things." Duo tried one last time. "Heero, if you don't give me the freedom to chose, if you order me to risk my life not caring what I think about it, then how are you any different from the 'evil' people you're trying to root out? Why should I like your tyranny over theirs?"  
  
"I think...," Heero frowned and then nodded. "I think I understand. You would have said yes if I had asked you to do the mission, if I had explained to you fully why it was required."  
  
"Yes," Duo replied, not daring to hope yet, "but I COULD have said no too. It would have been MY choice, not yours."  
  
"I doubted you," Heero admitted.   
  
"And that's what this is all about in the end. isn't it?" Duo replied, jumping on the opportunity Heero had presented him. "You didn't trust me to do the right thing. Sure, I'll complain and fight the whole way, maybe, but I know what has to be done and I do it, just like you do."  
  
"I have to give you the information and trust you to do the right thing," Heero said, summing it up.  
  
"Yes," Duo replied.  
  
"It seems..." Heero stopped.  
  
Duo finished, "Like a dangerous variable where a mission is concerned?"  
  
"Yes." Heero replied.  
  
"Too bad. That's life ... or life if you want to stay with Duo Maxwell." Duo saw Heero's eyes reflect sudden hope. Duo added uncomfortably. "I know I can't change you, that you're going to keep doing this job of yours as long as you can. Well, I guess Sally was right about one thing, I shouldn't stand in the way of that. If I want you, I have to share you."  
  
Heero gave Duo the full force of his blue eyes. "Do you want me, Duo?"  
  
Duo stared back and gave him the truth, "Yes."  
  
Heero suddenly pulled Duo into his embrace. He kissed Duo deeply and Duo melted, his heart pounding in his chest as he felt his back touch the bed. Heero stretched out on top of him and clasped his hands in Duo's as he devoured Duo's lips. It was as if he wanted to taste Duo's very essence.  
  
Duo felt Heero hard against him, but the man didn't go any further than to gently rub in an unconscious motion. Duo found himself concentrating on that hardness, Heero was long, he thought nervously, and thought of his own inadequate body. Heero must have felt him shrinking away. Heero broke the kiss and rolled until he was laying next to Duo, still holding him, body pressed to body.  
  
Confidence, Duo thought. No more whining. No more feeling sorry for himself. He had what he had. If Heero couldn't accept it, that was too bad for Heero. He felt Heero's hand touch his unbound hair and stroke it where it lay along his back. Duo let go of his need for control, his need for dominance, and ignored the fear of rejection as he slipped arms around Heero and pulled him as close as he could. He put his ear against Heero's chest and listened to the man's heart. He was surprised at how good it felt to just let go, to surrender to the need for comfort.  
  
"I'm going to forget all of my troubles and all of yours too," Duo said softly. "Just for a little while, Heero? I need... I need you to hold me, to love me. Forget about being a perfect soldier. Forget about saving the Universe and just save me, okay?"  
  
"Rest easy," Heero replied as he kissed the top of Duo's head with protective concern, sensing that Duo had reached the end of his strength both mentally and physically. "The Universe can wait, for now."


	27. Transitions

"How do you feel?" Wu Fei asked as he sipped at his tea.   
  
Duo used his crutches to awkwardly hop to a chair and collapse into it. Sweat was running down the side of his face, but he had made it all the way to the conference room with only a helping hand from Heero once or twice. He put his ankle gingerly up onto the chair next to him and just breathed for a long moment, before he nodded and replied, "Okay."   
  
"Liar!" Sally snorted as she fiddled with a disk and then inserted it into a computer slot embedded into the long conference table. "Did you go to therapy?"   
  
"Torture, you mean?" Duo snipped back and then nodded again.   
  
"Good," Sally approved. "I made clean laser cuts, but there were some muscles involved and scarring from the first attempt to remove the locator." She read from a screen with a very serious face. "You should be operational in another week, but I'm afraid that you're going to continue to have trouble with that ankle. At some point, the locator, or part of your leg, is going to have to come off. The degradation factor-"   
  
Duo cut in impatiently. "Yeah, yeah, let's not deal with that right now. Let's talk about getting back my reputation and my passport back into space. What are we going to do with the information I risked myself for?"   
  
"It's complicated," Wu Fei replied. He took another sip of tea and then put the cup down carefully. He gave Duo a dark eyed, thoughtful look. "There are problems."   
  
"Heero's already told me what the information is," Duo informed him, nodding to the silent man standing at his shoulder. "I know it involves the Peacecrafts and the government."   
  
"It especially involves Senator Santoro," Wu Fei said. "Part of the information was about unauthorized troop movements and communications between the man and questionable groups. It seems that both Santoro and these groups were funding research at the installation that you broke into. It's clear that they are attempting to create weapons powerful enough to cut through Gundanium in violation of every law."   
  
Duo made a bitter face. "Another war in the making."   
  
"Yes," Sally replied determinedly, "but it's a war we will stop. With this information, we'll be able to root out many of the anti-unification sympathizers from the government and eliminate Santoro."   
  
"And help me," Duo added. When there was silence and closed expressions, Duo repeated. "And help me?"   
  
"What's going on?" Heero suddenly demanded, frowning fiercely.   
  
Both Wu Fei and Sally looked at Heero with a hint of trepidation, but it was Wu Fei who was brave enough to reply regretfully, "Surely you can see the ramifications of accusing Relena Peacecraft of unfairly sentencing Duo for her own ends? We can't possibly try to exonerate Duo without bringing her name into our case against the government."  
  
"Wait a minute!" Duo exclaimed, amethyst eyes wide in alarm and hands held up as if to ward of a blow. "Are you saying that all of this crap I've gone through was for nothing? Are you trying to tell me that I'm going to have to be a good boy, take my poison, and go back to my apartment like nothing happened, so that Miss Relena doesn't get her reputation smeared?"   
  
Wu Fei began to reply, but Sally cut him off impatiently. "Of course not, Duo! We'll expose the drugs Santoro gave you when we have him arrested. You won't be forced to take them any longer."   
  
"But the rest," Duo demanded, fury rising. "You expect me to do the rest?"   
  
Sally sat back in her chair and looked down at her hands. "Yes, it's the only way. If I had known that Relena and Zechs had foolishly embroiled themselves so deeply into this matter... Understand," she said. "Peace depends on their government succeeding. We can't jeopardize that in any way. I'll have you taken back to your home, Duo."   
  
"Making choices for me again," Duo ground out. He looked over his shoulder at Heero. "It seems I'm not worth as much as everyone else, Heero. It seems a corrupt, peaceful government, who uses its people for bait, is more important than Duo Maxwell. What do you think about that? I wonder how many more people Relena Peacecraft and her brother will decide aren't as important as their quest for pacifism? Where does it end? Is this how you save the Universe, just in bits and pieces depending on which ones Sally Po or Relena think are important?"   
  
A piece of plastic hit the table. Heero's photo on an I.D. stared accusingly at Sally. "I resign. Duo is right," Heero grated.   
  
Duo stood awkwardly and turned, meeting Heero's intense gaze questioningly. Heero smirked and snaked an arm around Duo's waist. "Why stop being a rebel now?" Heero replied to Duo's look. "Let's go."   
  
"Where to?" Duo wondered suspiciously, tensing against Heero's arm.   
  
"I'm saving you, Duo," Heero replied, "Just as you asked."   
  
"You ARE a hero!" Duo laughed and leaned into Heero's embrace. "Well, do your job and get me the hell out of here, Yuy!"   
  
As Duo hobbled out of the conference room supported by Heero, Wu Fei stood up in a smooth motion, finished his tea in one gulp, and then carefully put the cup down. Moving around the table, he came to stand by Sally. She glared up at him.   
  
"You're going too, aren't you?" Sally demanded in exasperation.   
  
Wu Fei smiled, leaned down, and captured her lips in a passionate kiss. When he broke it, he looked deeply into her eyes. "Justice demands that I do what is right, not what is politically convenient," he replied and then gave her a deep bow. "I will return."   
  
Sally looked angry and then her eyes softened. "Get Duo off planet. It is what's right," she agreed, "but please, don't destroy everything accomplishing it. We aren't Relena's lap dogs, but you know that her goal is our goal; a peaceful, elected government for the colonies and Earth."   
  
"That's your job," Wu Fei replied as he straightened. "I would just like to return to my books."   
  
"And me?" Sally added hopefully.   
  
"You above all else," Wu Fei replied.   
  
"Then catch up to those fools," Sally retorted in mock irritation as she held back tears, "and make sure they leave Earth in one piece."   
  
Wu Fei complied.  When he had caught up to the slow moving Heero and Duo, he said calmly, "This way,"  and led them to the upper levels, using his fingerprints in pass keys to gain them entrance to the hanger pads above ground.   
  
Heero took the crutches from Duo as soon as they entered the hanger and tossed them aside with a clatter. "Too dangerous on a ship," he explained as he picked Duo up in a fireman's carry and stalked after the retreating Wu Fei.   
  
Duo scowled, feeling self conscious as personnel turned to stare. "I feel like a duffel bag," Duo growled and then grinning sarcastically at the crewmen making way for them, he pointed to Heero and said, "Just married! He's carrying me over the threshold!" There was some laughs, but a few looked as if they wondered if the strange group should be stopped. Wu Fei and Heero appeared to be respected though, and no one questioned them as they reached a sleek looking ship.   
  
Duo admired the clean lines. It was obviously built to move through space and atmosphere and it looked deadly. Duo saw an array of weaponry attached to the undercarriage. The coloring of the ship was familiar. Duo puzzled over it as Wu Fei pushed the control to bring down the ramp and then he remembered. He gave Wu Fei a serious look as he asked, "Nataku's colors?"   
  
Wu Fei's jaw tightened at painful memories and he nodded once as he led the way up the ramp. Duo had a chance to look around as Heero carried him to a jump seat and lowered him into it. The ship was definitely state of the art.  That Wu Fei was willing to risk it in a run through military checkpoints either said something about his commitment to Duo or his confidence in the ship's ability.   
  
Wu Fei took the pilots' chair and Heero settled into the co pilot's as their fingers flew expertly over the controls. Wu Fei asked for clearance. Duo expected the controller to abort immediately. A flight plan hadn't been submitted, but, surprisingly, the controller didn't ask Wu Fei any questions. They were used to covert operations, Duo supposed.   
  
"We'll meet up with Trowa and Quatre before they reach planet side," Wu Fei said. "Quatre's space station will make a good hiding place for you Duo."   
  
Duo scowled. "No!"   
  
Both Heero and Wu Fei looked back at Duo with wide, puzzled eyes. "No?" Heero echoed.   
  
Duo replied in exasperation, "I know who messed with me. I know who's corrupting the government. Maybe I can't touch your precious Relena and Zechs, but I'll be damned if I'll go back into space without some revenge! I'm done going through the 'proper' channels. It's time for some old fashion vigilantism."   
  
Wu Fei looked disapproving. "You're not in any shape to fight."   
  
"So take us some place safe Earth side," Duo told him. "We'll hook up with Trowa and Quatre and they'll help take these guys out."   
  
"Why would they agree to do that?" Wu Fei wondered. "Quatre's a respected member of Relena's government."   
  
"Still?" Duo wondered. "After that raid on his estate, I don't think he has much to lose in the way of reputation. Everyone thinks he's a sympathizer."   
  
There was a gleam in Heero's eyes, a look from the war that Duo remembered; a man ready to give his life for a cause, for Duo's cause. "Relena can't touch Santoro and his sympathizers," Heero said, "Not without implicating herself and her legitimacy. If we destroy the man and his support, it would leave her hands clean of the matter."   
  
Duo had a thought. "Maybe that's what Zechs had in mind all along? He seemed very concerned with keeping us under his control. He could have been planning this very thing, bringing us all under his orders and dangling us in front of Santoro.  He might have been hoping that Santoro would attack outright at the threat and destroy himself."   
  
"It is possible," Heero replied and then slumped in his chair as he turned his attention back to the controls.   
  
"Don't like it, do you?" Duo wondered. "All the politics. You just want a clean fight and a clear enemy."   
  
"Yes," Heero replied.   
  
"War and battles are never that simple," Wu Fei interjected, eyes on his instruments as he began to taxi the ship out onto the launch pad. "There are always egos involved and political expediency."   
  
"Except this time," Duo retorted and grinned. "This time we're cutting those people out of the action."   
  
Wu Fei sighed at Duo's innocence as he laid in a course. As the ship launched, he said, "I'll be taking you to a retreat that I have. It should do for our purposes, but, Maxwell, if you want to take the time to heal, it might have been wiser to stay back at the installation and allow Sally's staff to take care of you."   
  
"They're the `people' I'm trying to cut out," Duo replied. "I've always been able to rely on you guys, so I'm going to do things with you watching my back, not them."   
  
"Sally is not dishonorable," Wu Fei argued with an edge of temper.   
  
"No, but she's playing the game, Wu Fei," Duo replied. "She's going to think of the government first, not me."   
  
"That isn't wrong," Wu Fei told him.   
  
"Then why are you here?" Duo asked. "Why not stay with her?"   
  
"After four years, you should be allowed to take yourself out of the game of governments," Wu Fei replied. "It's only honorable."   
  
"Especially since you are not useful as bait any longer,"' Heero added.   
  
Duo nodded thoughtfully, but then he smiled and it was Shinigami his companions saw looking back at them. "I'm going to enjoy going from bait to exterminator."   
  
Heero looked pleased by Duo's fierceness, but Wu Fei was shaking his head in disapproval. "I can take you into space, right here and now. You can hide and live a long life. Sally and Heero will take care of Santoro eventually."   
  
"Eventually?" Duo looked contemptuous. "It's been four years. When exactly was someone going to make a move? I think Relena and Zechs have had enough time to dance around a confrontation. I won't let them use the Gundam pilots to murder Santoro and his people and then take the fall for it. I intend to go after Santoro in a covert action. Nobody but Santoro is going to know what hit him."   
  
Duo crossed his arms over his chest and sank down sullenly into his chair. "I know I have to run, eventually, but I'm not going to do it until I bite them in the ass!"   
  
"All a hundred pounds of you, and injured as well," Wu Fei scoffed.   
  
Duo glared. "I'm a mean hundred pounds, thanks so much, and I heal quick. A week at the most and I'll not only be ready for the mission, but the other guys will be here to help out."   
  
"If they agree," Wu Fei reminded him.   
  
"With or without them," Duo promised. "I'm going to get my pound of flesh, Wu Fei. You don't have to come either."   
  
"Yuy," Wu Fei pleaded. "Make this fool see sense."   
  
Heero's face had a troubled _expression. He kept his eyes on the controls as he replied quietly, "I know that I can't change his mind, Fei. Duo is going to go and confront Santoro. I have to be there with him, at his side, if he's to have any chance of succeeding. I do agree that the man and his close allies need to be eliminated. Sally won't authorize it because of Relena's involvement, but it doesn't make it any less necessary."   
  
"I agree," Wu Fei replied sourly, "But there can't be any room for error. I trust in your abilities, Yuy, but Duo has been non commission for a long time."   
  
"Do you think four years can erase a life on the street?" Duo snapped back. "Do you think four years can erase the kind of training that Dr. G gave me? You've had your nose stuck in a book for years, Wu Fei. If you're going to ask something stupid like that, then ask yourself while your at it."   
  
"I've done missions for Sally," Wu Fei admitted. Duo stared, "and I've kept myself fit."   
  
Duo was quiet for a long moment and then he knew exactly what to say. "It's about honor, Chang Wu Fei." Duo was pleased to see Wu Fei suddenly incline his head in a small bow. The man wasn't going to argue with that kind of reasoning.   
  
Duo relaxed then. He could see outside the window opposite him. The clouds and blue sky enticed him. Why struggle any longer? Why put himself through more torture and possible death when space was so close? Wu Fei simply had to hit thrusters and they would skim as easy as silk out of the atmosphere.   
  
So close. Duo felt the ache, the absolute need to be weightless again, to have damnable gravity release his joints, release his heart, and release his mind from the twenty four hour torment he had been under for four years.   
  
Duo remembered Santoro's face, the man's fanatic glaze. A man like that would pursue him, Duo was sure. Honor and revenge aside, Duo knew that it was necessary to eliminate a threat to himself like that. Heero knew it as well. They both knew that the people needed a man like that gone as well, and so did Wu Fei. It would have a duel purpose, the assassination he planned, and neither Relena's government nor the Gundam pilots would have to be implicated in it.   
  
"Trouble," Wu Fei suddenly said.   
  
Duo tensed. "What is it?"   
  
"Government ships."   
  
"Let's get the hell out of here, then!" Duo exclaimed as he fumbled to put on a combat strap across his chest.   
  
Wu Fei and Heero were both staring at their instruments. They exchanged a look and then Wu Fei sat back in his chair in an attitude of defeat. "Beam cannon. Delta formation. Six ships. Checkmate."   
  
Heero growled in frustration. "They were waiting for us to trip the atmosphere alarms. You flew too high!" he accused Wu Fei.   
  
Wu Fei glared at him and crossed his arms over his chest. "I was expecting to go into space. That was the course that I laid in when I left the installation."   
  
"Out run them!" Duo shouted helplessly from the jump seat, "or get the fuck out of the pilot's chair and let me fight!"   
  
Wu Fei glanced back at him with a raised eyebrow. "I don't have shielding against  a beam cannon, Duo. Unless you wish to suicide, we are now prisoners."   
  
"They're demanding our surrender," Heero announced as he looked at the com screen. He frowned. "It's Milliardo Peacecraft."   
  
"Then we have some chance of getting you out of this," Wu Fei said to Duo. "He's helped you already."   
  
Duo covered his face with his hands, not wanting them to see the grief stricken look on his face. He felt the chains tightening around him already, especially the cruelest one, the one that kept him bound to the Earth. He knew that he had made the right decision, deciding to go after Santoro, but that didn't make his failure any less bitter or keep himself from wishing that he had done as Wu Fei had begged and escaped while he had the opportunity. Now...   
  
Duo unsnapped all of his restraints. He then limped to Heero and put his arms around the man from behind. Heero looked up at him as Duo pressed his face against Heero's. Duo knew that Heero could feel the wetness of tears against his skin, but he didn't care. "I don't know what's going to happen, but... " he tried to ignore Wu Fei, ignore embarrassment, and ignore his own hatred of appearing weak as he said softly in Heero's ear. "Remember, no matter what happens, that I love you and I wish... I wish a lot of things, mostly that we could have had some sort of life together."   
  
Heero gripped Duo's hands and kissed them passionately and with desperation. "It's Zechs out there!" he said as if trying to reassure himself. "He won't let them hurt you!"   
  
"After what happened at Quatre's estate...," Duo sighed into Heero's hair and buried his face there, pressing himself tightly and smelling Heero's scent. "I'm not sure what's going to happen to you, but I'm already on record as a terrorist and anti- unification sympathizer. I broke all the rules, Heero, and the death penalty is the usual punishment for that."   
  
Heero said, suddenly fierce. "We'll try to escape! There must be a way!"   
  
"No," Duo said and then straightened. He wiped at his face and looked at the tight formation of ships on the screen. "Wu Fei's right. Checkmate. We never had a chance. No use in everyone dying. Give up and do what they want Wu Fei." Duo turned and went back to his seat. Slumping down into it, he stared out of the window again at the blue sky. A few more minutes of freedom was all he had, he thought dejectedly, and spent it dreaming of space.


	28. Shake Down

"What took you so long?" Duo grumbled as Heero entered his cell, gun drawn.  
  
Heero looked with distaste at the sterile metal box with it's slab of metal for a bed and a plain, metal bowl for a toilet. Nearly a week, Duo had been there, the marks of his frustration denting every wall and, what was hopefully food, slung and swirled into obscene words disparaging Relena Peacecraft and her brother Zechs.   
  
Duo stood with fists clenched, tangled bangs in his eyes and his one piece, white detainee uniform adding to a pale, sickly pallor to his skin. "The guards," Heero asked, "Did they mistreat you?" It was said in a tone that implied that, if they had, Heero would turn unconsciousness to the sleep of death for the two men sprawled on the floor outside the cell.  
  
Duo repeated, shaking a little, "What took you so long? My trial is in two days. Those jerks out there were laying bets on what mode of death I was going to get!"  
  
"It wasn't easy infiltrating the security locks and by passing security without killing," Heero told him, "This isn't the war, Duo. I had to wait until you were put in solitary and for your guards to relax. Your reputation as a Gundam Pilot had them carrying laser rifles and mounting a guard twice the number than usual. Once they realized that you weren't going to pull apart your cell and escape, they relaxed their vigilance."  
  
Duo looked pained and bitter as he began to limp out of the cell. "Tell that to them," he growled as he jerked a thumb at the two unconscious men. He kicked one as he passed. "That's for taking my food, you shit!"  
  
Heero went cold. "They starved you?"  
  
"Only when Zechs had something special delivered from his table," Duo growled back. He stopped and rubbed a hand up and down one arm, not looking at Heero. "He came down here and tried talking to me, but I don't give a damn what he has to say."  
  
"He told me his plan when we were captured," Heero told Duo.  
  
Duo turned, amethyst eyes narrowed angrily. "Oh, he actually had one? What was it?"  
  
Heero put a hand under Duo's elbow as he helped him down the narrow corridor, telling him, "He wanted all of the Gundam pilots together so that he could launch us at Santoro and his sympathizers, just as we had guessed. He separated you from us so that he could strengthen you, gain your trust, and convince you that revenge against Santoro was both desirable and possible. He knew that you could convince us to help you get your revenge. "  
  
"So an enemy gets eliminated, the Gundam pilots either come out looking like heroes or murderers, and Relena and Zechs get to stay out of it and look as pure as the driven snow," Duo surmised. "What was the motivation to have me locked up?"  
  
"To keep us from condemning them in public," Heero replied tersely, "and to threaten us with your death to force us to execute Santoro."  
  
There were more unconscious men at a checkpoint. Duo stepped over them, glaring at one man in particular. "Just once, I'd like to met a guard who just does his job and doesn't abuse the prisoners because he's bored."  
  
Heero turned to Duo in concern. "Duo, if they hurt you-"  
  
"Save it," Duo sighed as he pulled Heero along with him and left the men behind. "A few punches and some verbal abuse won't give me nightmares. Let's save the kicking butt for the guys in charge of the goons."  
  
"We'll be meeting up with the other pilots at a safe house not far from here, " Heero explained as he guided Duo through a breached wall and out into cold, crisp air. Duo shivered and Heero threw a warm arm around him as he also emerged. "They'll be checking their atmosphere alarms and expecting us to make a run for freedom, not make our operations so close by."  
  
"Sounds good," Duo said and then let out a long breath as he collapsed, unconscious. Heero caught him and picked him up as if he were a child. He was as light as one and Heero hurried to his waiting black SUV with his heart turning to a lump of fear in his chest.  
  
Putting Duo in the passenger side seat and buckling him in, Heero then quickly climbed behind the wheel and drove off, one hand turning on the heat as his other spun the wheel back and forth to negotiate a winding, mountainous road at high speed.  
  
Duo awoke not much later, blinking and confused as he lifted his head and found himself in motion and in a strange vehicle. His eyes were wide with panic until they settled on Heero. "What happened?' he mumbled, rubbing at his face and trying to see something in the darkness outside.  
  
"I don't know," Heero replied in concern and reached out to touch fingers to the pulse at Duo's throat. Duo held still until he had finished counting. "A little fast," Heero told him and," he glanced at Duo's face, "you're pale."  
  
"I guess I was too mad at the damned guards to eat much," Duo admitted, "and the sudden fresh air and change in temperature kind of threw me for a loop. You don't get locked in a metal box for a week and not come out a little messed up."  
  
"There are some protein bars and an electrolyte drink in the bag at your feet," Heero told him. "Eat. We'll be driving for a least a half hour more before we abandon the vehicle."  
  
Duo pulled the rations out of the duffel bag and grimaced. "Yummy," he said sourly, but had sense enough to eat and drink to regain his strength.  
  
When Duo was through eating, he felt better, but Heero told him firmly, "Sleep while you can."  
  
More good advice. Duo moved to curl up against the side of the passenger door, the warm air flowing out of the vents counteracting the chill of the window. When he felt Heero's hand, he started uncertainly. Heero took hold of Duo's arm and pulled. Duo allowed it, curious as to what Heero intended. When he pressed Duo up against his side, Duo smiled.  
  
"Miss me?" Duo asked with a chuckle.  
  
"Yes," Heero replied and draped his arm over Duo as Duo curled against his warmth. He sighed and said, "This is the way it's supposed to be."  
  
Duo puzzled over that, but then, as Heero gently caressed his bangs out of his face and touched his face lovingly, he understood. They were in a dangerous situation. The old Heero would have shot him after he had fainted and escaped to infiltrate or destroy the enemy later. The old Heero wouldn't be taking time to allow a long haired young man to distract him and he wouldn't be indulging himself in comforting and being comforted. It was the greatest admission of love that Heero could make to Duo, that he felt okay with doing those things now, that being close to and loving Duo was more important than anything just then.  
  
"I'm sorry I scared you, fainting like that," Duo said reassuringly. "I'm not going to die on you, Heero."  
  
"Shhh!" Heero said softly and hugged Duo with a strong arm. "I was frightened. I saw a life without you stretching in front of me and I didn't want that life. I spent a week worrying about you, wanting you with me, wondering how you were being treated. Let me have this half hour of peace with you before we have to run and maybe loose each other again. Don't say anything. Just be with me."  
  
Duo nuzzled against Heero's side and tried to rest as a silly grin formed on his face. If he had died in the next instant, he would have died a very happy man.  
  
Duo did manage to sleep again and he realized how little he had slept or ate in the sterile metal cell. It was good to feel the warmth of the heater on his face and to have Heero's breathing, comforting presence against him. Duo felt safe, something that had been lacking throughout his captivity. The guards had made threats and promises, loving to torment their only captive by making him wonder whether they were serious or not. One guard had made darker insinuations under his breath and Duo had been fearful of being left alone with the man. He had often picked fights just to avoid it, making his guards nervous enough to always post more than one guard. The constant tension had worn Duo to the bone though, and, though he would never admit it to Heero, he had been glad to hear that Heero's plan had not included immediately attacking Santoro. Duo was sure he would have failed.  
  
"Here," Heero said simply and then sighed with regret as he turned off the engine and opened his door. Duo straightened, blinking sleepily. When the passenger side door opened, and Heero reached in to take his bag, Duo forced himself to slide out of the SUV and into the cold night air.  
  
They were in a heavily wooded area. Heero took camo netting from the back of the vehicle and covered the SUV up with quick, efficient motions. When he was done, Duo blinked, unable to see the vehicle as anything other than a darker patch of shadows under the evergreen trees.  
  
Heero didn't chance a light. A moon was their only illumination as he led the way into the forest, one hand in Duo's to guide him and his other feeling in front of him to keep them both from running into tree trunks. Duo didn't ask Heero how he knew where he was going. The man seemed inhuman in his abilities. It wouldn't have surprised Duo if Heero was finding his way by sense of smell or small clues on the bark of trees.  
  
The walk warmed Duo somewhat, but he was still shivering with cold and his feet were numb and uncertain on the rough, rocky ground.  
  
"Duo?" Heero whispered back at one point,  
  
"Operational," Duo replied and they were both silent again. When Duo's foot hit the boards of a sagging porch and he heard Heero's shoes thud, he knew they had found the house. Following Heero onto the porch, Duo stood and waited while Heero gave a coded tap on the door.  
  
There was a familiar click near Duo's head. A gun's safety was being put back on. "Trowa?" Duo guessed.  
  
"You two sounded like a troop of elephants," Trowa replied quietly.  
  
"Duo's ill," Heero explained. "He needs to get in out of the cold."  
  
Duo bristled irritably to be singled out as the weak link, but he was grateful when he felt Trowa's arm drop over his shoulders and pull him forward through the opening door.  
  
There was low light and the windows were shielded so that even that small light couldn't be seen by anyone looking for Gundam Pilots. Quatre stood from where he had been sitting on an old couch and Wu Fei moved out of the shadows with a pensive expression.  
  
"Duo's hurt?" Quatre asked in concern. "Take him to your room, Heero, and get him warmed up. I'll make some broth and hot tea."  
  
"Not hurt," Duo protested, "Just tired... the food sounds good though." His mouth was already watering and his stomach was tightening in anticipation.  
  
"Did you have any trouble releasing him from prison?" Wu Fei asked Heero, reminding him that Duo wouldn't need to be cared for if government soldiers had followed them.  
  
Heero looked troubled, the small light making heavy shadows on his face. "It was simple to release him. No one followed us."  
  
"You're suspicious?" Wu Fei pressed.  
  
"Yes," Heero replied. "Milliardo and Relena went to a great deal of trouble to threaten us with Duo's safety. It seemed strange that he was so lightly guarded. They know our skill."  
  
"It is possible that the opposition allowed you to free Duo," Wu Fei suggested.  
  
"Santoro?" Duo guessed and felt a twist in his gut. He squinted through the gloom at his long time companions. "I have to know right now. Are you guys going to help me take him out? My life is shit until that happens. He'll follow me, him and the people around him. They won't let me live free on Earth and they'll hunt me like a dog if I run to Space. I know it's not your fight, but-"  
  
"It is," Trowa replied.  
  
Quatre looked sad and his hand rubbed at his chest as he said, "It became my fight when they attacked and killed my people."  
  
"I will always fight for justice," Wu Fei announced nobly and inclined his head to Duo.  
  
Heero looked around the room and then he looked at Duo, a small smile playing on his lips as he said, "I'll fight for you, always."  
  
Duo felt embarrassed. Quatre broke the moment by moving forward and urging Duo up the stairs, "You're shivering. We have maps, explosives, supplies, and enough equipment for a small war. Wu Fei's ship is hidden nearby. All that is lacking is for you to be well enough to lead the mission."  
  
Duo balked and looked into Quatre's eyes. "I know killing bothers you..."  
  
Quatre gave him a hard look in return. "Not when a man has condemned himself by his own actions."  
  
Duo smiled. "It's up to us to save everyone. It feels good to be the hero again. I missed that even though I don't miss the war." He turned to Heero and saw Heero nodding, "That's why you never stopped doing it," Duo said to him. "You couldn't wean yourself off of this feeling."  
  
"I won't deny it," Heero replied defensively.  
  
"Good," Duo said as he went up the stairs. "It's what makes you Heero Yuy, I guess, and maybe that's a good thing for everyone; that you are willing to repeatedly save the universe."  
  
Duo stumbled on the top step. Heero's hand on his elbow steadied him and Heero didn't drop the hand until they had entered his bedroom. He led Duo through a spartan room with a single bed and a plain table with a laptop computer. The bathroom held soap, a medical kit, and a generic shampoo.  
  
"Nice place you have here," Duo joked as Heero sat him on the closed toilet and then turned to begin filling the tub with water. Steam began rising up and filling the small bathroom with warmth. It felt good, but Duo shivered even harder in reaction, his joints hurting painfully with tension.  
  
When Heero turned to open the medical kit, Duo protested. "You don't need that."  
  
"I don't?" Heero wondered doubtfully.  
  
"No," Duo replied. "I just have bruises."  
  
Heero's blue eyes assessed him critically and then he made a decision and reached out to help Duo undress. Duo gripped his hands and swallowed hard, stopping Heero from continuing.   
  
"I can take my own bath, Heero."  
  
"And if you pass out again?"  
  
Duo tried to think of a retort to that, but he wasn't quick enough as Heero pulled his hands free and began undressing Duo again. "I'm not a baby," Duo said at last as Heero pulled the prison suit down his arms to his waist.  
  
"Did I say anything to that effect?" Heero wondered.  
  
Duo grabbed Heero's hands again. Heero was staring at his narrow torso, at the stark bones of Duo's collar bone, at his long wiry arms with their knobby elbows. "Don't like what you see?" Duo hissed and felt his face turn red with shame and anger.  
  
Heero pulled his hand, still clasped in Duo's, downwards until he touched a dark, purpling bruise in the shape of a military boot. It was spread over Duo's right side. Heero touched many more, examining them, his expression going darker and darker. The worst bruises were on Duo's arms, presumably where his guards had tried to restrain him. Fingerprints littered his skin from shoulder to wrist on both arms.  
  
"Just the usual," Duo said and shrugged, trying to pass it off. He nodded to the tub. It was getting dangerously full of water. "Better do your job if you're going to be my bath servant."  
  
Hero grunted and twisted to turn off the water after Duo released his hands. When he turned back to Duo, Duo was already standing, holding the bottom of his prison suit up with both hands. 

"Give a guy some privacy," Duo said roughly. "At least look the other way until I get into the water."  
  
"Duo...," Heero began, but then did as Duo wanted, staring at the wall, while Duo dropped his hated suit and stepped into the steaming water.  
  
"You can burn that," Duo said as he sat down gingerly in the tub. It felt as if his skin was being seared off and he groaned and winced as his frozen body defrosted in several, painful, seconds.  
  
Heero kicked the suit into a corner and then sat on the closed toilet facing Duo. "You don't have to hide your body from me," he said.  
  
"Yeah?" Duo stared down into the water. "Well, I don't really want to talk about it, right now, okay?"  
  
"No?" Heero was suddenly kneeling by the tub, face inches away from Duo's. Duo swallowed hard and stared into cobalt orbs. "We have to wait until the search for you expands away from us before we can attack Santoro."  
  
"And I'll be using that time to prepare and get myself ready," Duo replied.  
  
"Right now?" Heero wondered with an arched brow.  
  
"I can think in the tub," Duo replied defensively. "C-Can you give me a little space, Heero? You're kind of making me uncomfortable."  
  
"Why?" Heero wondered, but his soft expression told Duo that he already knew the answer.  
  
Heero's hand rose and gently caressed Duo's cheek. Duo could feel callouses and a cut on the tip of his index finger. Duo wanted to pull away, but he couldn't. He unconsciously pulled his thin body into a ball and hugged his knees.  
  
"Let me love you, Duo," Heero asked softly. "Don't run away. Don't feel ashamed. Let me lock the door, lock the world out, and be with you. We don't have to have sex, it isn't about that. I just want you to understand that you are what I want, that your body doesn't disgust me, that you are the man I want with me, always. I don't know what's going to happen when we attack Santoro. I know we should be using every moment to prepare. That's something I would have done during the war. Now, I need more than that. I have a reason to fight. I want to hold that reason close to my heart, if you'll let me." Heero paused and then asked huskily, "Unless you have changed your mind and you can't accept me... You've been so angry, so betrayed... maybe you can't trust me either."  
  
Duo scowled and clenched his knees tighter. "You can do better than me Heero. That's what's holding me back. Maybe my 'charming' personality is enough now, but, later, after you get what you want, you'll wake up and realize it isn't enough."  
  
Heero's hand caught Duo's chin and pulled until Duo was facing him. Heero said intensely, with all seriousness, "You are everything that I want and, somehow, I'm going to make you believe that."  
  
Heero leaned in even closer and his lips touched Duo's lips in the barest of kisses; soft, sweet, warm, electric. Duo shivered and not from fear or cold. Heero began to lean back. The cold seeped into the space he was making between them. Duo suddenly couldn't bare that cold. He leaned forward and recaptured Heero's lips, giving the man a deeper kiss than the one he had received.  
  
Heero made a sound, a low, throaty expression of relief. He didn't press his advantage. He continued to kiss Duo gently. It was Duo who drank him in. He felt Heero press against him as he pulled the man closer to him. Water sloshed out of the tub. As Duo's head swam with emotions, and his body heated up until it was hotter than the water he was sitting in, he didn't notice that he was pulling Heero into the tub with him.  
  
Heero peeled off his wet shirt, lips still pressed to Duo's. The sodden shirt hit the floor as Heero threw it away from him. Duo's hands slid over Heero's now bare shoulders, kneading hungrily, fingers making the tiger tattoo move as if it were alive. Heero's tongue went into Duo's mouth and Duo sucked at it, tangled it with his own, and felt his body suddenly responding.  
  
Duo broke the kiss, eyes wide. Surprise almost killed his excitement, but Heero, searching his eyes, understood. He kissed Duo again and his hands slipped under the water. Duo felt his strong hands slide over his legs and then one hand closed on his cock. Duo whimpered into Heero's mouth, shy and nervous. A small, childish part of his brain protested, but the stiffness that Heero teased with light strokes, made need over rule it.  
  
Rippling muscles, bright tattoo, wild, chocolate hair, and blue eyes that Duo could drown in. This handsome man was touching him; obviously enjoying himself, obviously wanting more. He was waiting though, poised, holding back, not going any further, not wanting Duo to do something he wasn't ready for.  
  
Duo touched Heero's hand on him. Heero broke the kiss and Heero let go with a tight expression, fearing rejection. Duo grabbed the back of Heero's head and pulled the man to him until their foreheads were resting together. Duo smiled sadly into Heero's anxious eyes. "I know you think I deserve candle light, violins, and poetry for my first time, but... I think just being with you will be special enough, Heero. I-I don't want to stop, k? I'm not good at this, I've never really done it before. I know, though, that I want you to-to lead the way. Understand?" Duo blushed and felt nervousness twist his gut. He wasn't surprised that he had the courage to ask it or to go through with it. Sitting in a cell with his own thoughts had given Duo time to do a lot of thinking. He had missed opportunities to know love with Heero. He wasn't going to miss another with the future so fraught with danger and possible death.  
  
Heero turned and went through the medical kit. Pulling out a tube, he shoved it into one pocket and then face Duo again. "I know you're right. I know you're willing, I see it in your eyes. I won't...," Heero swallowed as if he was on the verge of tears, "I won't make you regret it, Duo."  
  
There was a moment of awkwardness. Now that Duo had decided, he was finding it hard to act. The though of finally being in another man's arms and... he looked up at Heero for help.  
  
Heero smiled and reached down. Duo was pulled out of the water and held in Heero's capable arms. The man didn't dry him off. He captured Duo's lips again with his own and slipped in his tongue. Locked together, he left the bathroom and went to the bed. Stretching out there with Duo beneath him, dripping with water, Heero managed to slip off his pants and shoes with amazing dexterity. Retrieving the tube, he placed it carefully in reach and then gave Duo all of his attention.  
  
"Say stop, and I will," Heero told him. He waited for Duo to nod and then Heero's kisses were trailing down Duo's neck. Duo had ample time to shiver and stare at the hard, long line of Heero's body, at his adult definition, at the hair that powdered him lightly on arms, legs, and belly. Everything about him was larger and stronger than Duo. He was beautiful.  
  
Heero's tongue swirled at the hollow of Duo's neck just above his collar bone. Duo shrank into himself, wanting to pull into an ashamed ball of nerves and avoid Heero looking at him. Heero put a hand under the small of Duo's back and lifted him up to meet a hungry mouth. When Duo felt lips, teeth, and a rough tongue on his right nipple, he gasped. When Heero moved to the other nipple and gave it the same treatment, Duo was shocked at how erotic and good it felt. He stared down at the tousled, chocolate hair moving over his chest and then Duo lifted hands to lightly touch and urge Heero to continue.  
  
Heero suddenly rolled and Duo was above him, dripping water still, beads of it glistening all over his pale skin. "Hair," Heero urged inbetween tormenting Duo's nipples.  
  
Duo fumbled with his braid, raked the braid apart with trembling fingers, and then let it flow down and around them both like a curtain. Heero broke off his gentle torment and stared up at Duo. His eyes were full of wonder, full of love.  
  
Deep in his throat, a needy growl wrapped up with his heart, Heero said. "Beautiful! You are so beautiful, Duo!"   
  
Duo, far from scoffing, flipping back a rude answer, or hating a lie, believed Heero's words. He could tell, without a doubt, that Heero wasn't handing him a line to make him more confident. Heero believed what he was saying. He did think that Duo was beautiful.  
  
Heero's hands ran over Duo's narrow rib cage, smoothed along his hips, squeezed, and then came up to cup Duo's face and bring it down for a deep kiss. Duo lay atop Heero, feeling Heero's long, hard erection against him. Duo tentatively reached between them to touch it. He heard Heero's breathing change, become more ragged. Duo rubbed and Heero groaned, his eyes closing as his back arched in pleasure.  
  
"Sensitive," Duo murmured, not sure what to say as he broke the kiss and looked down at what his hand was doing. He felt a sudden urge. He looked anxiously at Heero's face, but the man was beyond speaking. Duo decided to act on his own. Uncertainly, he moved down Heero's body until he was face to face with the head of Heero's cock. He eyed it as his hand continued to smooth over it, enjoying the hot feel of baby soft skin over steely hardness.  
  
Duo had seen vids. He had heard enough talk. He knew what he was supposed to do. Seeing it and actually doing it were two different things. Tentatively, Duo opened his mouth and took the swollen head of Heero's cock into his mouth. Salty precum touched his tongue and a taste that was uniquely Heero. Heero gripped wet bed sheets in anticipation, but held perfectly still otherwise as if he was afraid of scaring Duo by moving.  
  
Duo felt something inside of himself respond. Something instinctive wanted Heero inside of him, wanted that taste to last, felt the rightness of what he was doing and urged him to do more. Duo carefully took more of Heero into his mouth. He gagged a little, recovered, and then tried again. Experimentally, he swirled his tongue into the hole. Heero gasped and shuddered and Duo tasted more precum.  
  
Duo sat up a little and said, almost breathlessly as he let Heero's cock slide out of his mouth, "I-I like this, Heero."  
  
Heero sat up too and pulled Duo to him. "I'm glad, little love. I know you told me that you were bisexual, but I wondered the way that you avoided me."  
  
Duo blushed and felt guilty and foolish. "I was afraid," he admitted. "I thought that you couldn't love a skinny loser like me."  
  
Heero put a finger to Duo's lips. "No, don't say that again. It isn't true. It'll never be true. Trust me, Duo. Trust me to love you. In my eyes, there isn't anyone more beautiful or desirable than you."  
  
Duo felt tears. Heero brushed them away with a thumb and they began again. Bodies moved together, rubbed and touched, kissed and sucked. When Heero's mouth took in Duo's cock, the sensation was indescribable. It was warm, moist, tight, Heero's tongue a roughness as it moved up and down over swollen flesh. Duo went hard and then he came in an explosion that made him cry out in a half squeal of terror and a shout of pure ecstasy as he thrashed and shoved Heero off of him in a panic. Heero caught him before he could roll off of the bed and held him, soothing Duo with soft words and comforting caresses.  
  
"It's all right, Duo. We can stop if you want. I didn't mean to frighten you," Heero murmured over and over.  
  
Duo regained his breath. The room steadied, the lights behind his eyes went away, and his vision cleared along with his mind. "That-That...," he panted, trying to describe it. "I've never felt anything like that!" he finally finished. "Not with myself. It- I thought my heart was going to stop!"  
  
Heero kissed him on the forehead. "We can stop now," he said softly. "I can wait if you need-" His mouth was covered in a kiss and Duo pressed close, still needy.  
  
"More!" Duo begged around Heero's lips. "I don't care how tired I am or what's left of me in the morning. I want more of you, now!"  
  
"Are you sure...?" Heero began as if he was considering stopping things himself.  
  
Duo rolled and tugged hard at Heero until Heero was above him. He gave Heero an intense look. "You started this Yuy! Finish it! I'm giving you my cherry right now! You better take it or I-I'll give it to the next perfect soldier that walks by!"  
  
"Over my dead body," Heero growled and reached for the tube.  
  
Duo was afraid. He wasn't sure how it was going to feel, if it might be humiliating, if it might be painful, or if Heero might actually hurt him. He was tense as Heero turned him on his side and changed position to press up against Duo's back. Duo had seen several porn vids of men together. This wasn't the way he had seen it done. It made him even more nervous.  
  
Heero kissed Duo's shoulder. "This position makes it easier. We can try others, later, when you're more used to it. You have to relax Duo. You have to open up to me."  
  
Duo tried. It was hard when he felt Heero's lubed finger swirl around his anus. He was embarrassed and unsure. When that finger began to rub, Duo felt an intense, unexpected pleasure. He found himself lifting his hips to accommodate Heero. It seemed a raunchy thing to do and Duo blushed red again, wondering what Heero was thinking.  
  
"That's right," Heero murmured, reassuring him. "Relax. Enjoy. Don't be afraid. It will sting, at first, but stay with me Duo and I swear it will feel good eventually."  
  
Eventually? Duo braced himself.  
  
"No," Heero admonished, "You must relax, Duo. You have to allow me in."  
  
Heero's finger slid in. It did sting. It did seem a violation. It was only one finger. Duo began to move away. "Heero, I don't-"  
  
"Trust me," Heero told him.  
  
Duo froze. Heero's heart seemed to be pounding against his back. Duo loved Heero. He loved the man's body. There wasn't denying either one of those things now. Duo had to trust now, too. Love without trust wasn't love at all. Duo relaxed back into Heero's embrace and nodded nervously.  
  
Heero took his time. The stinging went away. Duo began to stretch and the pleasure came back. He sighed and moaned and found himself pushing back against that finger. He was hardly aware when another joined it. He stretched even more and the pleasure grew until Duo was panting. It was the best feeling he had ever felt in his life. If he died in the next instant, he thought, from those fingers touching and igniting every pleasure center in his brain, he didn't think he would care.  
  
When Duo felt the swollen head of Heero's cock touch him, he didn't care. When it swirled and began to ease in, there was a sharp pain. Duo expected it. Duo was willing to endure it, trusting that, like the fingers, there was going to be pleasure beyond that pain. Heero slowly filled him. He felt very large and it did feel like an uncomfortable invasion. Duo stretched, more than he thought possible or safe, until Heero was seated inside of him fully, pelvis against Duo's hips.  
  
Heero didn't wait. The pain was intense. Duo bit his lip. Heero explained, as he pulled that large, swollen cock slowly out and then pushed back in again, "The nerves will deaden in a moment. Your endorphines will take over. Just hold on." He groaned the words as if he were on the verge of passing out.  
  
Duo felt tears on his cheek. He gripped Heero's arms as they wrapped around his waist and couldn't help a panting whimper. Out, in, out, in, and then it happened just as Heero had promised, the pain suddenly stepped back and pleasure began to take its place.  
  
"God!" Duo groaned. "Heero! Man! This-This is good. You're so good! Love you! Love you!" There was still a bit of pain, but the pleasure was incredibly intense. Duo went blind and deaf, every part of his being centered on the large, hot organ, pumping in an out of him and rubbing ultra sensitive nerves.  
  
Heero's hand slid along Duo's belly and then took hold of Duo's cock. Duo hadn't thought that he could stand much more, or that there could even be more, but when Heero began stroking him to life, his movements in rhythm with his thrusts, Duo cried out and thrashed. Heero held him tightly and continued. Duo whimpered, gasped, and then let out a low moan that punctuated each thrust.  
  
"EEEEHHHHGGGG!" It was a wordless, incoherent, primal sound that erupted from Heero as he shot hot cum up into Duo. That triggered Duo's own orgasm. They both cried out and convulsed, pumping and stroking, Duo twisting to kiss Heero savagely on the lips as the world thinned and went away on a wave of sensation.  
  
When hearts slowed and pulses stopped racing, Duo became aware that they were tangled together, full of fluids, wet with water from the bath, and surrounded by soaked bed clothes. He laughed. It came out hoarse. Heero pried open an eye to look at him.  
  
Duo turned and wrapped himself around Heero. He kissed Heero gently, passionately, and Heero relaxed and smiled. "My ass is soooo sore!" Duo complained.  
  
"What about the rest of you?" Heero wondered.  
  
"Wonderful," Duo sighed blissfully and let his cheek rest against Heero's chest, draping himself loosely over the man he loved. "Wonderful," he repeated. "If this is a dream, and I'm still in that damned prison cell, I never want to wake up." He thought about what had just happened, how he had let another man totally possess him. Duo had often wondered if he could or would want someone to do that to him. With Heero, it was absolutely right. Duo had a feeling of being complete, of their two souls becoming one.  
  
Duo laughed again. Heero arched an eyebrow.  
  
"I'm going to start spouting poetry in a minute," Duo explained. "I've never felt this GOOD!" He groped for more words and couldn't find any. He looked at Heero. "Stay with me," he asked simply, his heart in his eyes. "Never leave."  
  
"I'm yours, body and soul," Heero replied seriously as he wrapped his arms around Duo and cradled him close. "For the rest of our lives."  
  
The rest of their lives. It made Duo think of their mission and he felt depression try to steal some of his happiness. What if the rest of their lives wasn't very long at all?


	29. Wings

Someone was nuzzling between his shoulder blades. Duo twitched and opened his eyes, remembering a prison and sadistic guards. When he saw the peeling paint wall and the plain table with a closed laptop, he oriented himself and recalled... Duo blushed furiously.  
  
A broad hand was brushing over one nipple. It tweaked it and Duo let out a yelp as Heero chuckled, deep and sensual. "It took you long enough to wake up."  
  
Duo blinked at the dim light coming in from around the corners of a blanket over the window. "What time is it?" he mumbled, unwilling to move from the nest of sheets and blankets that had made up their bed on the floor.  
  
"Mid afternoon," Heero replied. "You needed the sleep. I think you need more, but you also need to eat."  
  
Duo’s tight stomach agreed. He shifted and then winced as his lower body responded with a few twinges. Instead of frowning, Duo blushed even more and then developed a very wide, very foolish grin. "We really did it, didn’t we?"  
  
"Hurt?" Heero asked in concern. "I tried to be gentle, but..."  
  
Duo turned on his back and Heero propped himself on one elbow, looking down at him with a warm expression, chocolate hair a tousled mess in his face. "I didn’t exactly stop you," Duo replied. He reached up and caressed Heero’s face. "I didn’t let you go slower, when you probably should have. Doing it twice more was probably a bad idea as well."  
  
Heero smirked. His eyes gentled and he leaned down and whispered. "You are so beautiful, Duo. It’s like a happy dream. I’ve wanted us to be here, like this, since we first met."  
  
"On the floor?" Duo laughed jokingly. He looked over at the bed. "Quatre is going to have a fit when he sees that wet mattress. What are you going to tell him?"  
  
Heero suddenly frowned, a thought occurring to him. "Do you want me to make up a story? If you don’t want the others to know..."  
  
Duo became serious as well, thinking about what it might mean for Heero. "I don’t mind. I’m an orphan from L2 with a very bad reputation. Being Heero Yuy’s lover is a step up in the world. You, on the other hand, might not want people knowing that you’re associating with someone with a reputation like mine. Getting your face plastered over every paper and vid screen is a distinct possibility. Letting the guys know is only a small part of it, Heero."  
  
Heero’s eyes went soft with love. He kissed Duo on the lips and then said with determination, "We don’t have to watch vid shows or read papers. What people think of me has never mattered, Duo. I’m concerned with you, with me, with our happiness. Once we get free of Earth and our troubles, they can say what they like. Secretly, they’ll be envying me."  
  
Duo stared, astonished, and then he pulled Heero against him and tried not to weep. He clung to Heero’s bare body and Heero responded, wrapping strong arms around him and holding him lovingly. "When you say things like that, I believe you," Duo murmured against Heero’s chest, "though I don’t know why you should think that way about me."  
  
Heero rolled onto his back and Duo was suddenly sitting on top of him, straddling his waist. His tangled, loose hair draped down over Heero’s body as Duo splayed his small hands over Heero’s chest and looked down at him. Heero reached up and caressed Duo’s face with both hands. "Let my eyes be your mirror, Duo. Don’t doubt me or my vision of you."  
  
Duo swallowed hard and could only nod in reply, overcome with emotion.  
  
Heero played with Duo’s hair for a moment and then he looked uncomfortable. Duo was suddenly put aside and Heero was climbing to his feet. He had an obvious erection as he stood among the bedclothes on the floor.  
  
"I think I need to think about other things and get you something to eat," Heero said apologetically.  
  
Duo stared at Heero’s muscled body with its arousal. As the man dressed, taking his time tucking himself into his black jeans, Duo felt the urge to stop him, to reach out and... Duo sighed and curled up in his blankets. He was sore and exhausted. He needed to rest, to eat, and to recover from his prison stay. "That sounds good," he told Heero, but then admitted, "I know I shouldn’t have started stuff between us last night, as worn out as I was, but...," He grinned up at Heero. "It was damned worth it!" When Heero smiled and chuckled in return, Duo added more seriously, "It would have been worth anything, Heero. Anything."  
  
Heero nodded, going sober as well. "Yes, anything," he agreed with passion, but then looked pained. "I wish that we had more time."  
  
"We’ll have the time," Duo promised him vehemently, "as soon as we get rid of a few obstacles."  
  
"We will get rid of them," Heero replied determinedly. He bent over and seized Duo’s lips with his own. When he finally broke the kiss, he said, "Now that I know how very sweet you are, nothing will stand in the way of my loving you and having you for the rest of my life."  
  
"I feel the same way about you," Duo agreed and then smiled as he made himself more comfortable in the blankets. He yawned, "but, for now, I need more sleep and to eat. After that, you can debrief me and we can-" Duo scowled in mock anger at Heero’s raised eyebrow. "I meant you can tell me what’s been going on since I’ve been locked up!" He thought for a moment and then grinned. "But, of course, debriefing during the debriefing might be interesting too."  
  
Heero laughed as he opened the bedroom door to leave. He found Quatre standing outside, balancing a tray of food and raising a hand to knock. The blonde Arabian froze with wide, blue eyes, waiting for Heero to take his hand off of his gun before saying, "Duo needs to eat, Heero, and so do you."  
  
Heero blinked and then nodded as he stepped aside. Duo pulled the blankets up under his chin in trepidation as Quatre stepped into the room and then stopped in consternation. He took in the fact that Duo was on the floor with blankets and pillows and then turned his attention to the bed and saw the bare, soaked mattress. His face turned bright red as he stammered, "D-Duo! What’s..." Quatre stopped mid sentence, unable to go on. He clutched the tray close to his body uncertainly.   
  
Duo was embarrassed as well. He retreated nervously into humor. "I couldn’t sleep last night so, ah, well, me and Heero had a ‘meeting of the minds’, you might say."  
  
Quatre blinked. "We could hear," he said, "and I guessed when you didn’t come down for dinner. I’m- I’m glad that you and Heero were able to... " He blushed deeper and then came to what was bothering him abruptly. "W-What happened to the mattress?"  
  
Duo picked at the blankets. "Uh, well, Heero kind of pulled me out of the tub. He was a bit... over enthusiastic and... God, Quatre! Can I just eat? Sorry about the mattress and all, but you’re making me feel like I just got caught by the decency police!"  
  
Quatre shook himself and put the tray on the floor near Duo. He smiled apologetically as he crouched, but he still looked nervous as he said, "It’s your business, Duo, sorry. I’m not judging you. " He frowned at Heero as he continued, "I don’t approve of the timing, you were exhausted, but I saw a long time ago that you and Heero were attracted to one another." He looked Duo over and his smile grew warm. "You do look better than last night. You’re glowing. Love will do that."  
  
Duo looked away uncomfortably. "Quatre!" he protested and then looked at Heero and saw Heero’s loving expression directed at him. Duo grinned back. "Yeah, love will do that," he affirmed to Quatre, remembering why he and Heero had made love to begin with. Life was too uncertain to hold back. The same went for holding back words out of shyness or embarrassment.   
  
Quatre straightened and his expression turned stern, "Eat and rest today," he ordered Duo with a tone that wasn’t going to accept argument. He turned that stern expression on Heero, "and you make sure that he does, Yuy." He began to leave, but then stopped and stared at the mattress. "You had better take that outside to dry in the sun. Expect the others to laugh at you. Duo was..., " Quatre stammered as he blushed, "Duo was rather loud last night, so they know what went on, I’m afraid."  
  
Duo was mortified, a hand to his mouth as he watched Quatre leave. He looked at Heero as the man sat cross legged beside him and began looking through the food Quatre had brought. Slowly, Duo lowered his hand and Heero put a glass of juice into it. "I-I, " Duo began, swallowed, and then looked both bitter and unsure. "This is stuff I should have gone through when I was sixteen, dammit!"  
  
"We’ll pay them back for that," Heero assured him, "Together."  
  
+  
  
"Looks like they’re going to the same party," Duo said as he stared at the print outs. "Encryption codes galore. They don’t want anyone knowing about it, that’s for sure."   
  
Wu Fei frowned. "They’re afraid, obviously. Both groups are probably wondering where we’ll strike and whom. We now have a vendetta against both the Peacecrafts and Santoro’s group."  
  
Trowa had a mercenary’s perspective. He looked at the correspondence, his beard making him look inscrutable. He stroked it with slender fingers as he said, "It’s possible that they are joining forces, putting aside their differences in order to protect themselves."  
  
Quatre frowned. "Relena Peacecraft joining forces with killers? After trying to expose them for so long, I can’t believe that."  
  
"She put Duo in jail," Heero growled. "She dangled him and threatened him to gain our cooperation."  
  
Duo frowned. "To be fair, Zechs did try to make things more comfortable for me." His face went tight, "Still, a cell is a cell, and solitary, with some rat bastard guards for company, is not a pleasant experience."  
  
Heero draped an arm around Duo’s shoulders and pulled him into a tight embrace. Standing in the small office of the safe house, maps, readouts, and electronic equipment everywhere, there was hardly enough room for the ex pilots to stand around the small, round table at the center. Duo was acutely aware of their eyes on him at such close range and he looked at his feet nervously. Quatre and Trowa wouldn’t judge, and Wu Fei had made it already clear that their relationship didn’t matter to him, yet Duo still felt a flush on his cheeks and felt shy.  
  
"It could be," Wu Fei suddenly said, and all eyes shifted to him, "that one is pursuing the other. Prey and predator. It could be that our defection and Duo’s rescue has set the stage for factions to grow desperate and act prematurely before we strike."  
  
Heero nodded, "Santoro has control of government troops, but not all of them. If we attack him, he can call on them to protect him and he can condemn us. If we attack Relena it will be the same result. That depends, of course, on whether we attack in stealth or full frontal. Since both parties are unsure how we will act, it is logical that they will make their positions more secure to protect themselves better. Relena will naturally leave a capitol that’s hard to defend and retreat to a safe bunker until we have made our move, defeated Santoro, or been defeated ourselves. Santoro will only have the option of trying to overthrow Relena and therefore gain military control over installations.  
  
"So, if he is going after Relena and Zechs," Duo surmised with a dangerous gin, "then perhaps we should join the party?"  
  
"Save Relena?" Quatre wondered.  
  
"Yeah!" Duo replied. "What better way to get our good names back than to save the day and get rid of Santoro? That’s what we’re good at, right?"  
  
Heero smiled. "Right. Gentlemen?" he asked the others.  
  
Wu Fei was thoughtful, staring down at the papers on the table. "It could go very wrong. We don’t have Gundams any longer. If they have time to bring troops against us-"  
  
"Be optimistic, Wu Fei!" Duo urged.  
  
Wu Fei glared. "I simply wish us to be more prepared."  
  
Duo sighed impatiently. "You can’t prepare for everything. Sometimes, you just have to wing it."  
  
"Wing it," Wu Fei repeated, "How appropriate since it’s your wings that we are trying to recover, your ability to go into space."  
  
"I’m with you," Trowa said to Duo. "I don’t know much about politics, but I do understand loyalty and the need to eliminate an enemy."  
  
"That’s right," Quatre said. "Which is why I will be attending the ‘party’ as well. I want to help you, Duo, but it’s personal too. Santoro will turn to us after he has gained his revenge on you, I think, and Relena can’t be trusted not to use us as she used you once you’re no longer available for her schemes."  
  
"Fei?" Duo asked. "In or out? You can go back to Sally and reading your books, if you want to."  
  
Wu Fei scowled. "It isn’t necessary to accuse me of being a coward," he growled in a tone they remembered from the war. "I am not weak. I won’t hide behind books and a woman when there is justice to administer. I am with you."  
  
"Then let’s get ready," Heero said, suddenly settling into soldier mode. "Quatre, you coordinate."  
  
Quatre raised eyebrows, always astonished when he was given command. The man had the ability though, and he didn’t avoid the duty. "I need infiltration here and here," he said as he pulled a map from a stack and began pointing out key positions. "I need this road set with radio detonator bombs, and blinds set up at this point..."  
  
Duo watched their eager faces. Adrenalin was already making their skin flush with excitement. It never went away, Duo thought; the taste for danger. They might hate killing and war, but they couldn’t deny that they all had something inside of them that made them who they were, that made them the best of the best, that made them willingly throw themselves into the fray.  
  
"I’ll take care of the detonators," Duo spoke up. Everyone froze and stared at him. Heero’s arm around him tightened. Duo stepped away, bristling. "I’m going to do my part! What I do best is piloting and making things go boom! The job is mine!"  
  
Quatre studied him minutely and then nodded, "I’ll give you the timetable. You’ll be solo. I need Heero to do drops and conditions are rough. A storm is coming from the East, but we can’t wait. understood?"  
  
"Understood," Duo replied. His eyes sparkled. "I can do this," he assured Quatre.  
  
Quatre didn’t smile, but he nodded. "I know you can, Duo."  
  
+  
  
"Not a good time, Lover!" Duo shouted into the cell phone.  
  
On a secure channel, the voice on the other end was familiar and worried. "Report, Duo? What’s your situation?"  
  
"Ninety five percent complete!" Duo shouted back. "Now let me finish!"  
  
The phone slipped from Duo’s fingers and it plunged into the water below him. "Shit!" he swore.  
  
Hanging by his knees from the struts of a low bridge, Duo squinted at the detonator bomb he was trying to secure. The storm was making everything dark and whipping the water below him so that it sprayed him with ice cold droplets. He was shivering convulsively, making his job even harder, but he was determined to finish and to do the job flawlessly. The last detonators had to be placed in very difficult positions and they had taken up a good deal of his time already.  
  
Duo’s coat kept him dry, but he couldn’t wear gloves and do the delicate work. His braid was trailing down as well, the very tip touching the rushing river and slowly becoming soaked. Duo felt as if he were freezing to death. He comforted himself with thoughts of revenge and Heero’s warm arms afterwards.   
  
"Come on, come on!" Duo growled as he secured the bomb with ties and then made sure the transmitter was working properly. He saw a row of green lights appear on the device’s monitor and he breathed sigh of relief.  
  
Swinging, Duo caught a strut with his hands and swung up to a sitting position. Perched above the dark, roiling water below, he rubbed his freezing hands together briskly and then pulled gloves out of his pocket and gratefully slipped them on. It was then that the sky ripped open and the storm rushed down full force. Lightning flashed and Duo wished that he could stay where he was. He knew that the timetable wouldn’t allow it. He had walked into the area, knowing that a vehicle would be easier to pick up on a radar if anyone was keeping watch over the road. Walking back the five miles to where he had left his car wasn’t something Duo wanted to contemplate, yet it was necessary.  
  
Duo braced himself for the cold rain, made sure the straps of his small pack were secure, and then climbed up onto the bridge. He immediately began a quick jog, but the rain stung and his braid became a dead weight down his back, chilling him to the bone. He was forced to slow to a walk not far from the bridge. He was still not in optimum condition for any endurance test, but he couldn’t take it slow. He walked as quickly as he could manage, knee joints protesting and his body groaning under the onslaught of the Storm.  
  
When a car pulled up along side him, Duo swore. He forced a smile as the man driving the car rolled down a window and showed a swarthy face and a look of concern. "Hey, kid!" The man shouted above the pounding rain. "What’re you doing out in this? Get in and I’ll give you a ride."  
  
Duo couldn’t refuse. That would have looked even more suspicious. He climbed into the warm car and closed the door, breathing a sigh of relief as his body slumped and shivered against leather upholstery, dripping with water. "Thanks, man!" Duo exclaimed with chattering teeth. "Car broke down and I tried to walk for help. Didn’t realize there was nothing nearby, so I was walking back thinking I’d try the other direction." It sounded just foolish enough to be true.  
  
The man was large. He was wearing a black overcoat and his hands on the steering wheel were large and tense. He had a sharp, Asian look to his face, but his mouth was a cruel line and his dark eyes were flat, both belying his pleasant voice. His crew cut, dark hair gave him a military appearance and Duo was suddenly wary, especially when the man looked him over minutely as if he were a piece of meat.  
  
"Not much to you," the man suddenly said. "Pretty eyes, but you’re pretty ugly everywhere else. I like a lot more baby fat."  
  
Duo blinked. "You think I’m ugly?"  
  
The man frowned. "I was hoping for better pickings. Country lads are usually so hardy. I can see your bones in your neck. You’re absolutely hideous!" The man sighed as he pulled the car over to the shoulder of the road, put the car in park, and then turned to Duo. "Just take off your pants. I’m not interested in seeing the rest of you."  
  
Duo raised an eyebrow. "You really think I’m ugly?"  
  
The man was puzzled. "Are you so concerned with vanity when someone is about to rape you?"  
  
"If you had a chance in hell, I might be," Duo replied with a shrug.  
  
The man chuckled darkly. "You’re hardly a match for me boy!"  
  
"Ah, see, you’ve made two mistakes now," Duo replied seriously. "One, that I’m a boy." Duo’s hand shot under his jacket, pulled out a gun, and fired point blank. Blood splattered over the car and himself. He flinched, but hardly paused as he finished, "You’re second mistake was in thinking that I’m ugly. I have it on very good authority that I’m absolutely beautiful!"  
  
The man mouthed something in shock, but no words came out as he slumped onto the seat, very dead. Duo felt a wave of sickness, but he shoved it down deep. Holstering his gun, he stepped out into the rain and let it wash the blood from him in a pounding torrent. After sickness and blood were gone, Duo put the car in drive, put the man’s foot on the gas, and awkwardly guided the car towards the nearby river. Watching it roll into the dark, rushing depths, Duo spat aside, refusing to feel guilt for someone like that. If things didn’t go as planned, and his bombs blew up more than a bridge and vehicles, then he would have a more valid reason to be both horrified and guilt ridden.  
  
Duo checked his watch and swore. He was off schedule. Quatre had padded it, making allowances for Duo’s long walk, the possibility of a storm, and Duo’s reduced strength, but no one had counted on Duo running into a rapist and he had taken longer than expected to plant the bombs.  
  
"Shit!’ Duo swore and began to jog again. He had to make the time up somehow, even if it meant pushing himself over the limit. Without his cell phone, the others wouldn’t know that his detonators were in place. He had to reach his car and its radio as quickly as possible. 

Duo was panting and slipping in and out of a red haze as he finally reached the car. Collapsing into the front seat, he fumbled under the dash for the spare cell phone. Dialing the secure number, Duo was surprised at the quick answer. Before he could speak, Heero was shouting frantically, "Don't ever hang up on me again!" When Duo continued to pant and not answer, his anger turned to concern. "Duo?! Are you hurt? Has something gone wrong? I have in-"  
  
"Fine," Duo managed, cutting him off. "Tired. Pick up in twenty. Mission complete."  
  
Duo hung up again and tossed the phone into his coat pocket. Leaning his forehead on the steering wheel, he started up the car. It was long moments between that act and regaining enough strength to pull onto the road.  
  
Duo's heart was hammering with exposure and exhaustion. He was chilled, but numb, and he knew that was a dangerous sign. Still, he had to make the pick up point, and look competent when he arrived, or they would cut him out of the mission. Duo flipped on the heater and tried not to cry in relief as the warmth washed over his frozen body.  
  
"I can do this," Duo growled to himself and rubbed at his eyes to clear them as he drove. No one was going to keep him from his revenge, not rapists, not bad weather, and not his own frail body.  
  
Duo left the car where he had stolen it, a partly abandoned track of stores and dilapidated houses. Shouldering his pack, he walked through the pouring rain to a covered gas station pump, rusted with age and attendant asleep in the small booth, and waited for his pick up.  
  
"It must be fate, or damned good luck," a voice said behind Duo. Duo whipped around, pulling his gun at the same time, but an iron hard hand closed on his wrist and the weapon was jerked out of his grasp. Duo stared up into the smiling face of Santoro.  
  
Duo crouched, ready to break the man's neck, but the man suddenly dangled something in front of him. It caught Duo's eyes and he froze. It was a gold cross on a long chain. Duo recognized it instantly, wondering how he could have forgotten it. His cross! It was as much a part of him as his braid.  
  
"Come with me," Santoro ordered and Duo found himself complying without resistance, all of his attention on that glittering representation of his past. Santoro was pleased. "Seems those doctors did their job. Can't help yourself can you? It's like a carrot on a stick to you. Did you think all of those sessions with the psychologists were for your benefit? I had them brainwashing you every step of the way. You'll do what I say as long as I have this trump card to play. If you hadn't surprised me at Quatre's estate, I would have used it then. It would have saved me all of this trouble, trouble you're going to pay dearly for, Gundam pilot scum."  
  
Santoro walked ahead of Duo and led him to where a convoy of black limos was lined up on a road very close by. Men stood outside in the rain, guns drawn and aimed at Duo. It was obvious to Duo that he had been spotted as they had passed close to the station.  
  
Santoro was too early, Duo thought in a small part of his brain that still seemed to have some free will left. He cursed himself for hanging up on Heero. He had expected the man to complain and worry about him. He should have known better. He was certain now that Heero had been trying to warn him of this very thing.  
  
"Were you waiting for the other pilots to arrive?" Santoro wondered as a man opened the door of a limo and he slid inside. Duo followed his cross and sat on the seat next to him, eyes large and unblinking. Santoro played with him, moving the cross about and watching with amusement as Duo helplessly turned to watch it. "I think your companions have other concerns besides picking up a little murderer like you. I'm sure they're even now descending on the bridge Relena and her brother will soon be crossing; the bridge you so conveniently rigged with bombs."  
  
Duo felt a chill. It must have registered on his face. Santoro laughed. "Oh, yes! Understand now? You were set up, fool! We've been watching you every step of the way! I spent four years getting my men and my plans ready. You were the bait, you and some carefully leaked information about weapons that could penetrate Gundanium. Once I attacked Quatre Winner's estate, I knew that I had given you Gundam pilots every reason to attack me. Zechs attempted to use you for his own ends, but I'm smarter than that fool. We're going to go to the site of you ambush and I'm going to allow you to set off your bombs... prematurely." He held up a transmitter. "I've already had men change the frequency. I'm in control of the timing now, not your 'friends'. Relena and Zechs won't know what hit them. My troops will move in and destroy your friends, they will be blamed for the assassination, and I will quickly take control in Relena's place."  
  
Duo knew all about brainwashing techniques. He knew that a strong will could break through it. Duo knew that he definitely had the will. As rain and sweat dripped down his face, he tried will all of his determination to break free of Santoro's compulsion.  
  
The barrel of a gun rested against Duo's temple. "I'm not stupid," Santoro growled. "I won't underestimate you. Relax, boy, and enjoy the ride. There will be some pretty fireworks in a very short time."  
  
Duo couldn't speak. He could only stare and want his cross. Take it! He shouted it at himself, but his body refused to respond. It felt as if he were tied hand and foot as the car moved inexorably towards the site where Relena and Milliardo were about to be assassinated. He had to save them! Saving them meant saving his friends. If the government troops imagined that the Gundam Pilots were attacking Relena and her brother then they would be slaughtered out of hand. Heero would be slaughtered!  
  
Duo relaxed suddenly. Santoro nodded. "Good, about time you gave up and faced the inevitable. A few more minutes until we reach the bridge, Duo Maxwell. A few more minutes until I blow up a bridge and the last obstacles in my path to power. I have you and your comrades to thank. I wonder how I should show my appreciation?" His eyes glittered. "Maybe I'll take my time getting my revenge and let you live long enough to see me take power?" Santoro placed the gun in his lap and then drew a thin knife from his coat. Still holding the cross up where Duo could see it, Santoro started bringing the knife towards Duo's face.  
  
The man was going to cut his face, Duo realized in a panic, scar him as he had scarred Santoro so long ago. Move! Duo shouted it at himself. He could see up ahead, see the rain soaked bridge coming into view and another convoy of white limos approaching it in front of Santoro's vehicles.  
  
"She's always so punctual," Santoro laughed, "Even when she's running away." His expression went cruel. "I still have time. Don't worry. It will only take a moment to give that face of yours a new beauty mark."  
  
No! Duo thought. He couldn't let this happen! He couldn't let it all end with his dearest friends dead, the government overtaken by a madman, and his body mutilated. Duo concentrated. He pumped adrenalin through his body by sheer force of will. His heart raced and his pulse hammered in his ears. The memory of doctors sitting in front of him with his cross hanging from their hands, monotonous voices hypnotizing him and setting the compulsion, bled through the mental blocks that they had used to cover their tracks. Used! Used again and again! The anger Duo's thoughts of outrage generated burned through him and burned through mental restraints, setting him abruptly free.  
  
Santoro's one hand held the remote and Duo's cross, both prizes Duo had to have. Duo forced a grin. The knife hesitated as Santoro registered the expression with confusion. "Why are you smiling?" the man asked suspiciously.  
  
"Because I know something that you don't," Duo replied hoarsely.  
  
"I doubt that," Santoro growled and then demanded, "What?"  
  
Duo pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and held it up. It was turned on, the light obvious to Santoro. "You really are stupid, you know that?" Duo sneered.   
  
Santoro lunged with his knife, face purple with fury and an incoherent shout of rage coming from his lips. Duo ducked. The knife buried itself into the upholstery. The heel of Duo's hand caught Santoro on the chin even as he reached and snatched the gun out of the dazed man's lap. Bringing it up, he fired straight towards Santoro's chest. The man was already in motion. Eyes wide with panic, he managed to twist out of the way in a move that seemed impossible for his size. The bullet hit the driver instead. The man slumped over the wheel with a splatter of blood and the car jerked sharply towards the river.  
  
Santoro looked frightened and then he whipped back around, rage over taking him again. "I'm going to break every one of your skinny bones, you little bastard, but first I'm going to blow up that bitch Relena!" The man pushed the button of the remote and Duo heard bombs explode. The car shuddered.  
  
Duo saw the bridge erupt in fire and smoke, but he didn't have time to see if the white limos were a part of it as he brought his foot up and caught Santoro in the gut as the man rushed him. The air left Santoro in a whoosh! but his momentum brought him down on top of Duo. Duo felt as if his bones were being crushed and he cried out even as he brought his gun in line with Santoro's head and fired.  
  
The door suddenly opened and Duo fell backwards. The bullet hit the ceiling of the car as Duo suddenly found himself inches from the ground, the grass of an embankment rushing beneath this head, his braid whipping along the ground. Santoro was leaning over him, eyes wide with glee, his hand on the handle of the door and his other still gripping Duo's cross. Duo's hand, wrapped in the man's coat, and Santoro's weight on his pelvis, was the only thing keeping Duo from falling.  
  
Gritting his teeth, Duo brought the gun to bear again. Santoro had expected him to panic and drop it, but Duo was a trained soldier. He didn't panic. He calmed his mind, ignored his danger, and narrowed his eyes as he tried to take aim. Santoro sneered and simply removed his weight, shoving Duo's hand off of his coat. Duo fell.  
  
It was as if everything stopped. Duo seemed to have an infinite amount of time to think as the rain soaked ground rushed towards his head and back. It was going to be ugly, he thought. He was about to be very messily dead. He decided not to die in vain. In the seconds before oblivion, Duo brought his gun to bear with both hands and fired into Santoro's face. He saw the man jerk and die instantly. Duo also saw his cross tumble from the man's suddenly slack hand. The golden, glittering reminder of Duo's past fell towards him as pain exploded against his back and neck.  
  
Duo didn't die. Shocked, he felt himself sink into deep mud as the wheels of the car churned past his body, spraying him with more mud as it crashed into the river and was swept away by the strong current. The cross hit Duo's chest, bounced, and then went slithering down the embankment after the car, heading towards a similar fate.  
  
"No!" Duo choked out as he gasped for air, rolled to hands and knees, and then flung his numb body after the cross. He slid in the mud, scrambled, and frantically clawed towards the fast moving glitter.  
  
Another body was suddenly there and scrambling along with him. Duo didn't flinch or care who the stranger was, he only knew that, if that cross hit the water, he would dive in after it and probably die. It wasn't a psychologist's compulsion that drove him this time, but his own emotional need. No matter what the stranger intended, Duo wasn't going to falter from his course.  
  
Duo used every ounce of the strength he had left to throw himself forward for one last effort. Just as the cross reached the water, his hand closed on it, as did the hand of the stranger. As both of them grasped the precious cross as hard as they could, they sat up, panting and shaking. Duo looked into the mud covered face opposite him, expecting the face of an enemy. Instead, he met the cobalt blue eyes of Heero.  
  
Duo fell against his lover, sobbing. His cross was released into his care and Heero's strong arms wrapped around him and held him tight. "I thought that I lost you!" Heero kept sobbing, over and over again, against Duo's mud covered hair. Duo pressed his cross close to his heart and simply sobbed in return.  
  
They both calmed after a time, shivering with the chill and reaction, and Heero held Duo back from his chest to look into his face. "I heard Santoro on the cell phone. I saw you fall out of the car. I jumped out of the ship's hatch to reach you in time."  
  
"Why you didn't break every bone in your body, is beyond my understanding," Wu Fei said as he and the others approached. Duo and Heero turned to face them , startled. "You've done some impossible things, Yuy, but that was incredible! I thought that you were a dead man when you didn't wait until I reached a proper altitude."  
  
Quatre made a face as he stepped through the deep mud, and Trowa picked his way as delicate as a cat, behind him. "Uh, guys," Quatre said anxiously. "I know that was a very emotional moment for all of us, but there is a troop of soldiers wanting an explanation. They want to know why Santoro called them, why a bridge was blown up, and why we were there to stop Relena and her brother from being on it when it happened."  
  
Duo came back to himself with an effort. He slipped the chain of his cross over his head and centered the cross over his breast. He suddenly felt whole again as he asked in disbelief, "You stopped them? How?"  
  
"Wu Fei landed the ship in front of Relena's convoy," Trowa explained. "It received some damage. A car wasn't able to stop in time and broad sided it."   
  
"I will be sending her the bill," Wu Fei interjected sourly.  
  
Duo looked anxiously at Heero. "She'll have me arrested again, Heero," he said as he put a hand in Heero's and squeezed tightly. "We need to get out of here."  
  
"Arrested?" Wu Fei raised a dark eyebrow. "You saved her life, Maxwell! You're a hero, as are we all. The Gundam pilots have cleared their names. Our honor is restored."  
  
Quatre was more skeptical, "You aren't a politician, Wu Fei. She may owe us and Duo, but-"  
  
Wu Fei nodded to the skies. Everyone looked up. The rain had reduced itself to a drizzle and clouds were breaking. Clearly they could see a troop of hovering ships with vid show logos on their sides. "She can't cover this up. She'll have to acknowledge it. It's in her best interest as well. Santoro, I assume, is dead, and his movement can now be safely eliminated as well."  
  
"I suggest that you not stay long enough to test that theory," Trowa said seriously, wiping the dripping water from his beard. "Lions are lazy after they've been fed, but they get hungry and vicious again soon enough."  
  
"Is your ship space worthy?" Duo asked as he shakily stood up. Heero rose with him and put an arm around his waist. Covered in mud and faces drawn and emotionally exhausted, they looked almost like twins at that moment.  
  
"Yes. The only damage it received was to it's beauty," Wu Fei replied. "It's still fueled and supplied for a long space flight as well. If you're intending on using it, do so with my sincerest compliments."  
  
Duo smiled warmly. "Thanks, Wu-man! Those were my thoughts exactly." He laughed softly at Wu Fei's disapproving frown at the nick name as he looked up at Heero and asked, "Coming, love?"  
  
"Of course," Heero replied. "I can save the universe in Space as well as on Earth."  
  
Duo chuckled and then turned to his friends and held out his arms. Wu Fei hesitated, but then was forced to take hold of Duo as Duo staggered on uncertain legs. Duo hugged him hard around the neck and Wu Fei stiffly returned it. Quatre and Trowa were less reserved. As they joined the embrace, Quatre was openly weeping and Trowa was smiling ever so slightly as he clapped Duo on the back.  
  
"Bye, guys," Duo said as he broke the embrace. "I don't think I'm coming back here again, I'm too much of a space baby and the locals were less than hospitable," he said bitterly. "I want to see you once in awhile though, so get in your damned ships and visit, K?"  
  
"You're so sure that Relena will give us clearance?" Heero wondered.  
  
"Can't tell about women, but let's find out, shall we?" Duo was flushed under the mud, anticipation giving his exhausted, wounded body, the energy he needed to return to Heero's embrace and begin the walk to Wu Fei's ship. The others followed behind, mud squelching beneath their shoes, faces solemn and dangerous, ready to protect themselves and their friend.  
  
Troops had the area surrounded. Milliardo and Relena were standing outside of their limo, a servant holding an umbrella over their heads as they talked to a troop commander and surveyed the missing bridge with shock. As the mud covered pilots approached, guns began to be drawn.  
  
Milliardo growled, "Stand down! They saved our lives!"  
  
Duo smiled. Relena looked prim, but he could see fright in her eyes at her close call. Both of them were dressed in their formal senate clothes. Relena was dry, but Milliardo was wet, his white hair plastered to his body. Duo imagine that he had exited the limo to coordinate the troops, not stood on the sidelines with Relena. It reminded Duo that Milliardo, while a scheming politician, was still a brave man.  
  
"It seems that we owe you our thanks," Relena said formally. "I-"  
  
Duo shook his head, his mud covered braid swinging heavily with the motion. "I'm too tired and sore to stand here and listen to a pretty speech. I want off planet, now. Give me clearance."  
  
Relena looked concerned. "I'm sure that the courts will agree to give you that clearance once we present them with proof that you are not a sympathizer with-"  
  
"No more courts!" Duo snapped, his amethyst eyes glowing with temper. "No more waiting! I saved your life. I want clearance and my freedom in return, now."  
  
"Is this man threatening you?" the troop leader growled and his gun nosed out of its holster. "I'll arrest him at once, ma'am."  
  
Milliardo gave a curt hand sign. "He's a hero, captain. All of the former Gundam pilots are. They single handedly saved our top government official. I think a pardon is well within reason, don't you sister?"  
  
Relena still hesitated, blonde eyebrows drawn down in disapproval. "There are certain channels that have to be adhered to. We can't just ignore the law and-"  
  
Duo nodded to the ships hovering with their cameras. "If you don't, I'll kiss Zechs right now and announce our marriage to everyone of those ships. Ready to pose for pictures honey?" Duo said with a humor he wasn't feeling. Anger was seething through him instead, anger for the system that Relena was so ardently defending; the corrupt system that had made four years of his life a hell.  
  
Milliardo could have declined to go along. Instead, he smiled tightly. "Certainly, 'darling'. Have we set a date yet? I'll defer to you, of course."  
  
"Well, April, I think," Duo began. "Well have bridesmaids in pink and purple and pink roses would look rather nice-"  
  
"You have clearance!" Relena suddenly erupted, her eyes wide and her cheeks as pink as her dress. She turned to the captain. "He has leave to go, Captain."  
  
"Yes, ma'am. I'll inform communications." The man bowed curtly and left.  
  
Duo nodded and then he smiled at Milliardo. "Sorry, I guess I'm a fickle bride. I've fallen in love with Heero, you see."  
  
Milliardo nodded to Heero. "I do see. Lucky man."  
  
"I think so," Heero replied, but he frowned at Duo as he led him away towards the ship. "We will not be married with pink and purple flowers!"  
  
+  
  
After taking leave of their friends and taking quick sonic showers in the cramped quarters of Wu Fei's ship, Heero and Duo both dressed in Wu Fei's spare clothes and then prepared for flight. Duo sat in the pilot's seat. He was wearing a shirt of Wu Fei's. It hung on his slight frame, as did the black pants. He looked like a child in the high backed, leather chair. As Heero took position in the co pilots' chair, he couldn't help asking worriedly, "Good to go?"  
  
Duo nodded and smiled reassuringly, eyes sparkling in anticipation. "It would take me more than four years to forget how to pilot. I want to be the one at the controls when we hit zero g."  
  
"You fell out of a speeding car and you have just finished a difficult mission," Heero reminded him.  
  
"And I'll pass out later," Duo agreed. "Not now."  
  
Duo touched his cross and his braid, stroking both. He reached out to Heero and caressed his arm. "I have everything that I've ever wanted, except one thing."  
  
"Then Heaven is only minutes away," Heero chuckled. "Let's do it, Love."  
  
Heero set off the thrusters and the ship rose sharply upwards. Duo's stomach dropped to his toes and the g force made his head spin, but he was a professional pilot and a good one. He compensated, adjusting the controls to make the thrust constant. He felt a joy rush through him. It was almost as good as sex with Heero, he thought, to pilot again and to know that he was about to burst through the atmospheric envelope of Earth.  
  
Wu Fei's ship slipped through the turbulence easily. Duo resisted the urge to close his eyes against the pressure. Instead, he watched the view screen and witnessed their entry into space. As the blackness surrounded them and he felt the gravity of Earth release his bones, Duo shouted with joy, tears floating from his eyes like fiery crystals.  
  
It was a long time before Duo could speak again. Heero had unstrapped him, holding him close and whispering soothingly into his ear as they floated weightlessly in the cockpit. Finally, Duo sighed and, smiling happily, he said, "I don't ever want to forget this moment."  
  
"Neither do I," Heero replied as he lovingly looked into Duo's eyes. He kissed Duo deeply and then said, "You have wings again, my Shinigami. Let's fly."  
  
Duo held Heero close. "We'll fly together. Always together."  
  
"Always," Heero agreed softly and Duo set the ship's course to take them to freedom.  
  
Owari


End file.
